For those of you politely looking away from this protracted train wreck, here are the basics:
Having thrown an entire pot of spaghetti on the wall for the past 20 + years, and none of it sticking, the leadership at Zenith is proposing a few "changes"...
Now those of you recently arrived to Watch Town will likely not be aware of the constant and seemingly never ending reinvention of the folks from Le Locle. And in fairness? It's not the folks who design the watches, build the watches, and sell the watches - although they are the ones who will be paying the price. No, gentle reader, from Nataf, to a licorice assortment of temporary place holders, Zenith has struggled to not only have a steady hand at the wheel, but to clearly identify their place in Watch Town and make a real and sustained impact in retail.
One particular anecdote that to me typifies this malaise (albeit a rather "blue" one) goes back to BaselWorld and the flustered CEO explaining the concept behind having a full service barber offering haircuts and shoe shines in the booth. He joked that if things didn't improve, the next year's BaselWorld promos might involve certain things that I'd rather not go into in this space...
All of that being in the past, let's talk about where we are now. And this is just little me talking. Zenith does not inhabit the upper price echelons. It is not Patek, in fact it's not even IWC or honestly even Panerai. And I want to be clear, this is not about quality. Zenith makes an AMAZING product. But they have never, ever, been able to stay consistent and market it. They constantly get the "fidgets". This unwillingness to see things through leads to a product line that seems to be far too big, and a bit all over the place. This inevitably leads to the grey market being a likely landing place for so many "misfit toys".
The idea that Zenith's current CEO is proposing seems logical enough - super expensive, small volume brands are doing well. So let's decamp to the lofty heights of Hauteville! But this is forgetting one important little nugget of recent history - it is far easier to reduce your prices than to increase them. Or more specifically, it is super hard to reinvent your brand ethos and get the people who actually spend coin of the realm on such luxuries as watches to buy into your new identity at the higher sticker price.
And now let's get back to the folks who are getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop - the workers. Yes, once again upper management will be fine. But if the stories out of Le Locle are to be believed, half of the staff at the manufacture will be no longer there - that's 100 jobs.
Whether it will succeed through yet the latest reinvention or not remains to be seen. But as someone who counts more than a few folks who ply their trade in Le Locle, I wish them good luck and Godspeed.
