Friday, January 1, 2016

What Barry Hearn Could Teach the Watch Industry - 3

3.     Make sure your heart and wallet stay in a different place

Watches do more than tell time, they stir passion.  Inevitably, the folks in the PR departments and those signing on the dotted line, and even those at the very top sometimes lose track of the business side.  Sometimes, their hearts and the company wallets "merge".

Let me put it even more bluntly - LVMH, Richemont, SWATCH and even the smaller guys have absolutely no problem with be tough negotiators with suppliers, staff, distribution and retail partners.
And frankly that is the way it should be - this is business after all.  

But when it comes to celebrity partnerships, ambassadors and events, they spend like drunken sailors on a 24 hour shore leave.  Press junkets to Argentina to watch polo, to Iceland to hike and look at glaciers, Germany for a gala launch, to Hawaii to watch (and not report on) a surfing event... it goes on and on.  Put another way, some brand managers and CEOs have clearly never met a celebrity that they wouldn't like to be "closer to".

Millions of dollars thrown at celebrities, and very little measurable return.  But every brand PR manager, brand manager, CEO is so terrified of NOT doing the same thing that the big boys are doing that they continue to throw the money around.  

Now I am not saying that friends of the brands or partnerships are inherently bad.  But I take more of a "Money Ball" approach to the spending of marketing money.  But ultimately, there is the unshakable belief that you must be partnered with the MOST PRESTIGIOUS partner possible.  Which, in turn, limits your exposure (fewer "impressions"), and costs you a BOATLOAD of cash.

When your brand is hemorrhaging money, maybe if you spend your marketing money a little more responsibly, you won't have to lay off hardworking staff for the sake of your ego.

But ultimately, brand manager, PR manager and CEO - it is up to you.

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