Tag Heuer and CES

Huh...

Apparently Tag Heuer feels this is "groundbreaking"!

I beg to differ, but you be the judge:

The “TAG Heuer Connected” watch continues to surprise! 

TAG Heuer, presenting an exclusive and groundbreaking collaboration with its Ambassadors, unveils the first personalized watch faces for its “TAG Heuer Connected” watch at CES Las Vegas 2016.

As I said, I don't get it - but for your edification, here is the Tom Brady edition.  Clearly Mr. Brady is a better quarterback than he is a designer.  Now it would be really cool if when you bought the "ambassador face" for your connected Tag Heuer it came with a special app designed with the ambassador in mind?  For example, I have no doubt that Mr. Brady would find an app that measures the air pressure in a football quite useful.  And I'm sure this slice of creativity looks great with a pair of UGGs -

Courtesy of Tag Heuer

And brace yourself for the Jeremy Lin -

Courtesy of Tag Heuer

In terms of custom apps, it could double-down with two handy apps:

1.  The "over-the average" app.  With this smart watch app, Tag Heuer's connected watch could ensure that Mr. Lin would be warned if he's ever in danger of exceeding his "rugged" 12 point per game average.

2.  Zillow  with his connected Tag Heuer, he'll be able to get a jump on house-hunting when the inevitable happens.

Let's be honest, I suspect even Jean-Claude Biver could take Mr. Lin at the low-post.

And hold your applause - the most exciting of all -

Courtesy of Tag Heuer

The Giancarlo Stanton!!!

Yawn...

And some Feedback from a Reader

As we believe in fair and equal time, this comment came in this morning.  The grammar's a bit hinky and it reads as if it came from Tag Heur (or someone working there) but anyway, in the interest of an
exchange of ideas, here it is -

TH doesn't not sign Mr. Lin due to Linsanity but for the toughness Mr. Lin displays when dealing with some many basketball irrelevant stuffs that other big names don't have. "Don't crack under pressure" is the message TH tries to deliver but not "basketball superstar".


I'm not exactly sure what "many basketball irrelevant stuffs" means exactly, but if we're talking about not "cracking under pressure" then I'm afraid the PR team at Tag Heuer are about a few years late.  As I said in my earlier post, the time when Mr. Lin was NOT cracking under pressure was when he was with the Knicks, and for a heartbeat with the Rockets.  On an extremely inept Los Angeles Lakers team he is average.  I am sorry if that seems mean, but put in another context - he is NOT the basketball equivalent of Ronaldo.  And given his own coaches opinion, I do not get the sense that Mr. Lin is the stuff that typical Tag Heuer marketing plans are made of.  Sorry to sound mean, but I'm calling bullshit.  Mr. Lin started to "crack" as soon as he was let go by the Knicks.  

Or to put it another way - Ball Don't Lie.

Tag Heuer and Mission Creep

First and foremost I want to state clearly -
I have NOTHING against Jeremy Lin.  I was swept away with "Linsanity" along with everyone else.
But with the selection of Mr. Lin as Tag Heuer's latest athlete-ambassador I was left scratching my head.







Okay, for many this is not "new" news.

On the plus side - Mr. Lin is "squeaky-clean".  It is highly unlikely that he will be found hung over and semi-unconscious with a dead hooker in his hotel room.  That's good.

On the not-so-plus side - half of the kids in Los Angeles could take him on the baseline.  He was an exciting player for a brief moment in time, and had the Knicks come to their senses and kept him, I think he could have and would have done great things.  The chemistry was there.  But like doors that open, once they close things change.

And on another note, and please bear in mind that I went to a "land grant" university so perhaps I have a built-in mistrust for Ivy Leaguers and anyone who went to Stanford (even Summer school),  he is more than a bit "wooden" in pretty much every instance he is called upon to speak, as the YouTube video bears out.

And now he is just down the road from me in Los Angeles where he has been unable to nail down a starting spot - and this is a Lakers Team that is so bad it has Jack Nicholson questioning whether or not he should keep his season tickets.  Strictly going on the current season, Mr. Lin is playing like an average NBA player.

I suspect you might be able to guess where I'm going with this, but hear me out -
If the goal was to sign an impressive basketball player - sign someone who is actually, I don't know, impressive.  Like James Harden.  Mr. Harden is a man of faith,  so like Mr. Lin he would probably NOT be an embarrassment.  And he has a HUGE following.  Which begs the question - why was Mr. Lin really signed?

Insert your own answer here.

But my feeling is - Tag Heuer is suffering from Mission Creep.  To quote my favorite resource, the Ubran Dictionary -

mission creep

The tendency for some project or operation to exceed its original boundaries and purpose, usually putting its participants into difficult or unforeseen circumstances. These may cause the original purpose to change, or to become unachievable.

And this is where the uncomfortable question has to be asked - does Tag Heuer even know what Tag Heuer is anymore?  And the full truth be told, I do not think that there is consensus in Tag Heuer Land.  I do not think that anyone is feeling "comfortable".  

But as always, time will tell.