Tanishq takes Chola themed jewellery beyond Tamil Nadu

Chennai: Tamil Nadu’s fascination with its Chola heritage has translated into excellent enquiry and sales for the ‘Chozha collection’ launched by jewellery brand Tanishq and prompting the company to think of taking the range to the rest of India.
According to top company officials, so far Tanishq has been selling more than 420 products from its ‘Chozha collection’ whose average weight is around 50-60 gm.
Within a month of its launch, the ‘Chozha collection’ has already totted up a sell through rate of close to 30% and the company expects to cross 50% shortly “which is the target for the overall festive season,” says Ajoy Chawla, CEO, jewellery division, Titan.
So good has the response been that the company is thinking of expanding the marketing footprint of the ‘Chozha range’ beyond Tamil Nadu.
“We have started looking at big cities with a strong Tamil population like Delhi-NCR and Mumbai,” says Chawla. “Eventually we will introduce this range in the top 30-40 stores outside Tamil Nadu and we are excited to introduce the ‘Chozha jewellery range’ to other parts of the country as well.” The company is confident of demand and currently its main worry is that it will run out of stock. “Our inventories are in line with anticipation of good growth during the festival season,” adds Chawla.
Tanishq started work on this range more than a year ago, inspired by Chola architecture. The company’s designers visited the Brihadeeshwara temple and Gangaikonda Cholapuram to recreate Chola era designs in gold. The range, which was launched in September, was priced between 75,000-5 lakh.
The ‘Chozha range’ is part of the company’s aggressive focus on heritage jewellery as part of which it has introduced the Aishani collection of Durga Puja inspired jewellery and the Alekhya collection of jewellery with Rajasthani enamelling work. “Our design themes are based partly in heritage and partly follow design trends globally,” says Chawla.
“Cultural heritage is something we are looking at very seriously and we are planning a whole bay in some stores for these ‘tales of tradition’ jewellery.” With growing appetite for heritage themed jewellery, this design credo makes marketing sense.The footfalls for the ‘Chozha range’ is part of the overall trend of strong demand for gold jewellery in Tamil Nadu. “The Tamil Nadu market has done well for us and both the second quarter and half yearly trends are very strong and we have gained marketshare,” says Chawla.