Heading into Day 17 of the unprecedented lockdown that has disrupted lives and businesses across the country, your mailbox is probably full of mails from CEOs and business heads of companies that you are connected with.

Mails from mutual fund chiefs exhorting you to stay invested and continue your SIPs through the market volatility. Or, you may have got a mail from the Airtel CEO, if you’re a customer, on how the communications company is working “relentlessly to ensure uninterrupted mobile and broadband services for all its retail customers”.

But, lakhs of customers of watches and jewellery maker, Titan Co Ltd, would have been pleasantly surprised to receive a message from Managing Director CK Venkataraman. Clicking a link takes one through to a video message recorded by the MD. “The direct and collateral damage of the crisis is huge. You will be happy to know that Titan Co is very much part of the Tata group efforts to bring substantial relief to the affected people,” he says in his message to Titan customers.

Venkataraman ends his short, two-minute message saying, “You will also be happy to note that Titan Co is seriously working on how we will operate when normalcy returns, keeping our customers and employees safe and all people in our stores at the centre of our focus even as we imagine a new tomorrow.”

Venkataraman says this seemed a more personal and interesting way of conveying a message rather than an email to Titan customers. The lush green background behind him is because he shot the video himself on his balcony with a mango tree behind him, he says.

The video message has been sent to Titan’s loyalty programme members called Encircle, which has 15 million members. Reward points accumulate for members on purchases made across Titan, Tanishq, Fastrack, Titan EyePlus, Zoya, Mia and Taneira outlets. Around 80 lakh SMSes have been sent so far to its members by the Encircle team. “The message should be meaningful to the person who gets it. That was my focus,” says Venkataraman.