It was 10 past 10, time for the grand toast of the party. ''Here's to Buzz,'' said Rishi Prasad, an Associate Director, raising his glass, ''a brand that will more than keep ticking under our new boss, Jai Swaroop. Welcome to Buzz.''

At a South Delhi pub, this was Swaroop's first get-together with Buzz's top staff since taking charge as Managing Director of the American quartz watch-maker's Indian subsidiary. The cries for a 'speech' went around. After some hesitation, Swaroop spoke. ''Our passage to India has been a tale of flip-flops,'' he said. ''We are neither a prestige brand, despite our foreign heritage, nor what we tried to be-a mass-market brand. And we have failed to emerge from the shadow of our domestic partner, which remains the market leader. We made the Buzz watches, they worked on the Buzz brand image, and look what happened. Let's face it, the alliance was a disaster for Buzz.''

Glasses were thrust up to signal solidarity. But Swaroop had more to say: ''Now that it's over, we need to soul-search. We must rethink everything, starting with why our brand is positioned in the Indian consumer's mind as a 'durable' watch when it's obvious that the market displays only two motivations, fashion and affordability, and these are also the two attributes that determine the segmentation pattern.''

That was five years ago, when Swaroop took charge of a unit that had been doing business in India for 10 years (and with losses piling up and a turnover of barely Rs 100 crore to show for it). With a domestic plant capacity of 2 million units, the idea was to start modestly, establish the brand's durability credentials under the extreme local conditions of dust and weathering, keep costs tight, and then scale up to become the largest volume player. But its ally-and fort-holder for marketing-continued to outsell Buzz. To do any better, the relationship had to be severed.

Distribution, marketing and servicing systems had to be built from scratch, and there was a year of lying low, as Buzz restructured its operations as a solo venture. By 1999, the all-new Buzz was ready to storm the market with a major relaunch.

Durability was cast aside, but not for either fashion or affordability. These two big segments not only had strongly dug-in incumbents, they were ill-suited to Buzz's competitive strengths. Moreover, as Swaroop worded it, ''Market dynamics favour innovation instead of me-tooism.'' The Indian market was getting fatigued, with so little innovation coming from the familiar players. The Indian organised market, at 22 million units, was struggling to grow. At the top-end, chic foreign brands were set to enter with tags above Rs 10,000 per watch, and at the low-end, cheap faceless unorganised sector and grey channel watches were flooding in to address price-sensitive demand.

Gaining leadership, Swaroop reasoned, was best done by resetting the market's rules by reshaping consumer perceptions and creating a hot new 'growth' segment. And so 'tech' became the new mantra-and positioning peg.

Armed with that logic, Buzz hit the market as an all-new 'hi-tech' brand. Not a watch that lasts and lasts till eternity, nor something that tells the time cheaply, nor even a fashion accessory for power dressers, but a techno-savvy watch that wows you with its info-age features and space age designs.

Buzz kicked off its new campaign by showcasing a vast range of technologically new-fangled products. There were a dozen watches catalogued in its print ads, with 'technology' announced as the new brand mission. Among the many hi-tech wonders was a DataLoad model, which could transport digital files from computer to computer.

But sales weren't quite booming the way Buzz had hoped. Five years into his job, Swaroop wanted another rethink. ''I wouldn't say we're back to square one,'' said Rahul Anand, who had replaced Prasad as marketing chief a couple of years ago, ''because our surveys show that Buzz is well associated with technology, but I'm still haunted by the numbers. In a market of 35 million watches, the high-growth segments continue to be the Swiss imports and the faceless time-tellers.''

''Has technology failed to deliver?'' interjected Swaroop, ''That's the question we must have the nerve to ask.''

''Well,'' said Anand, ''we'd earlier thought we needed a stronger emotional bait to go with the hi-tech designs, so we got endorsements from cricket heroes... but people don't see the connection.''

That is when Joy Chitre, Anand's deputy, came up with his suggestion. ''Why don't we take a cue from youth brands like Guest and Spirit, and go cool?''

''Let's not bring the pure-fashion European brands into the picture,'' replied Swaroop. ''We need to keep our product propositions aligned with our core R&D competence-digital age technology. That's our cost advantage as well, betting on the silicon miniaturisation curve. With digital economics, we break ahead.''

''Besides,'' the managing director added, ''abandoning the hi-tech message will leave our brand without a defining character. My point is, the hi-tech part is the given, it's the other variables we should work on. We've not been able to get across to the consumer.''

Chitre nodded, and then tried again, ''Maybe we can use a spacesuit fashion troupe with weightless choreography, or something.''

Swaroop narrowed his eyes in mock irritation, ''You sound like an adman.'' There was a round of laughter.

Anand spoke next. ''Maybe we flummoxed the market with our hi-tech catalogue. In evolved markets, marketers focus on one single model, give it a distinct personality and target a well-determined pyschographic profile. This becomes the standard bearer, even as other models sell the volumes.''

Swaroop nodded, ''I see your point. That's also why software powerhouse Micron's vision of convergence excites me so much.''

''Oh!'' exclaimed Anand, ''you mean the computer-cum-cellphone-cum-wristwatch?''

''Yes, the alliance is still being worked out in America,'' said Swaroop, ''but once it's done, the wristwatch might become a time-receiving device rather than a time-keeping device. It will be network-enabled. That's convergence. And we gain from Micron's 'one touch' campaign as well.''

Should Buzz bank on 'convergence'?

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