Waiting for the World to Change

This first ran in 2014 - just over 10 years ago. In re-reading it this morning, it is clear that not a whole lot has shifted in that time. Let's see if anyone in Watch Town is ready to pick up the gauntlet.

Waiting for the World to Change...

So...

Show of hands - how many of you out there bought a watch because Warren Beatty was given one as a freebie at a film event, or because Arsenal slapped their logo on the dial?  I think we all know the answer to that - if you had, both JEANRICHARD and Girard-Perregaux would be in much better fiscal shape than they are now.

Did you run out to buy an Hublot when Floyd (I show my love for the mother of my children in a physical way) Mayweather was presented a watch?

Did you buy an Audemars Piguet in joy and jubilation following a Serena Williams grand slam win? 

Did a burning desire to own a Maurice Lacroix overcome you when you read via Facebook that they were sponsoring cliff diving?  REALLY?!??!!!

Did you fly to the authorized retail partner to buy an Huatlence when Eric Cantona signed on?  Okay, bad example.  True confession, I would buy "King Eric's" old t-shirts and frame them - he's the shit that killed Elvis!  But to buy an Hautlence?  Gotta' draw the line somewhere, and I would rather have four walls and a roof than live in my car with an Hautlence on my wrist ; )  Should Hautlence ever deem to actually, I don't know, invite me to some of their "events" I might be willing to modify this opinion ; )


But ask yourself this question -

What (if any) return on investment do you think a watch brand receives when they plop hundreds of thousands (if not millions) on a promotional partnership?

Yachts?  Racing cars?  Super models?  And what REALLY drives these choices?  It is vanity, artifice and frankly a good flush of investor money straight down the toilet of waste to satisfy the ego of watch executives.  Does it drive sales?  Maybe not so much when one of your biggest "stars" rewards his team mates with a different company's watches... sorta' a kick in the dick seeing as you gave the guy like, a "Bajillion Dollars" to wear your watch and try to appear happy about it.  Just sayin' ...

I'm tired.  I'm tired of it, and I don't want to write about it any more.

And here's the irony - many of these brands actually do good, donate money, participate in charitable actions - but it's almost as if they are ashamed of having the world know about it.

Watch brands - if you do something GOOD, something FOR OTHER PEOPLE WHO NEED HELP - FU*&ING TALK ABOUT IT!  Stop burying your good deeds with more fodder about your latest ambassador from Taiwan, or how Jeremy Renner "chose" your watch for the "red carpet", or that some "long in the tooth" supermodel is your latest partner - nobody gives a shit anymore.  It costs a great deal of money and frankly you could do more with that money and get MORE POSITIVE publicity - which frankly is what you were trying to do in the first place, right?

What could you do?  Well thank you for asking, allow me to suggest:

Look to Rolex and Hermes and what their foundations do.  You could endow scholarships.

If you like football (soccer) as much as so many of you claim, you could donate some money NOT to a pro team that needs money like it needs a hole in the head - you could give the money to a really GOOD organization like Grass Roots Soccer.  Be involved in soccer, be involved in education and help to stop the spread of AIDS.  Seems like a pretty good deal, doesn't it?  Still want to have big-time soccer people involved?  No problem, they've got you covered:
Christen Press, Elton John, Freddie Ljungberg - I think any brand would be proud and frankly lucky to have these folks attached them.  And for the brave watch company that says - "YES, We want to be a part of this!"  I guarantee there will be football stars who will gladly join you.  As odd as it sounds, doing good can be good for business.  But I also realize that you've done it the same way for the past 20 years or so.  Change is hard, because it requires you to admit that maybe, just maybe the world has changed and you have not kept up with it.  

Audemars Piguet's well-quoted slogan is: "To break the rules you must first master them".

I would do them one better: "To be relevant in the world you must first participate in it."

The brand that's ready to do that - I am ready to fly the flag for.

Making Watches (and Luxury Watches at that) A Little More Human

So a little known Henki factoid -

As an 11 year old Northern Youth, I dabbled at designing football (soccer) shoes that would ideally be useful for young players (i.e. kids with little to no spending money) who worked summer jobs to pay for their soccer registrations and their soccer gear. In my case, this meant shining shoes, washing golf shoes, cleaning the men's locker room and running (in hindsight) very dubious errands for the local captains of industry (a few, who in hindsight, were members of a certain fraternal organization that WAS NOT the Elks). That March (1980 if memory serves) our first game of the spring season was snowed out. So I grabbed a few of my father's many pens and very crudely sketched out a design for a pair of soccer shoes. And being the rather impetuous kid that I was, I mailed them off with a rather sloppily composed letter asking the then mighty Mitre shoe company to consider it.

About a month later, the phone rang (a yellow, wall-mounted rotary dial model from the good folks at GTE) and it was someone at Mitre USA calling all the way from Tennessee. They informed me that they got my design and wanted to send me a pair of Mitre Missile Shoes. How in God's name they got my phone number, I will never know. They asked me my size, which I timidly told them was a size 6 (that's particularly wee) and I remember my father's nearly apoplectic reaction to my not asking for a larger size so that I could get more use out of them. You would have had to know him at the time. He was a great coach with a somewhat short fuse around the house.

The shoes arrived a week later, and I wore them TO DEATH.  I did, naturally, grow out of them and all the way through my youth career was a dedicated customer of Mitre, my last pair being the "Pro Model" in high school.  I went on to play semi-professional soccer (football) up until I turned 23, when it became clear that my time playing at that competitive level had come and gone. But I still hold Mitre in high regard, and think of their shoes as my constant companion as a teenager dreaming of being the American Michel Platini ; )

And that story immediately came rushing back earlier this week as I was searching for the video from the recent Chronoswiss press presentation. I stumbled upon this video from a little over a year ago (if I read the date stamp correctly). It is a really, really nice story about a father and son and Chronoswiss. For Christmas, the son wanted to make his father something very special, and to that end, using drawings, images, a scalpel, colored pencils and paper, created a paper version of the Chronoswiss Opus Chronograph - his father's dream watch, a Chronoswiss Opus Chronograph -

Courtesy of Chronoswiss

The video speaks for itself, but bravo to Chronoswiss. This was a much needed "warm fuzzy" at a time when we all could really use it.

Nuking the PR Fridge with Hublot

Hublot partnerships are becoming about as unique and special as, I don't know, a Hublot partnership...

Shamelessly borrowed from the internet

So hang onto your hats sports fans, here's the latest "exclusive"partnership trotted out by the folks in Nyon -

Courtesy of Hublot

So behold, the Big Bang Unico Bi-retrograde Chronograph Limited Edition for the Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao FC.  No, if I'm honest I've never heard of this team either.  But Hublot's press release dispelled all of my doubts -

Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao Football Club, as one of the top football clubs in Asia, has achieved outstanding triumphs. From 2011 to 2014, the club made it to the top of Chinese Football Association Super League for 4 consecutive seasons. In 2013, Evergrande won the first place in AFC Champions League and became the first champion of the league in Chinese football history. Behind these brilliant achievements is Evergrande's spirit of proactive self-improvement, breaking limits and never give up. And it is Evergrande's spirit that has moved countless football fans and become the best interpretation of Hublot's spirit of pioneering and innovation.

I'm not sure about the grammar, but with a "spirit of proactive self-improvement, breaking limits and (my personal favorite) never give up" ...

For "realsies"?

But with a team slogan like "Be the Best Forever" I have absolutely no doubt we'll be hearing quite a bit from this amazing team in the near future...

And in fairness, perhaps I do not follow football in China as closely as I should.

Courtesy of Hublot

And as if that wasn't enough, what's a circus without two other Hublot ambassadors to further confuse the message?  Hublot's ambassadors Lang Lang and Pele himself were there as well!

But wait, there's more!  Mr. Fabio Cannavaro, the new "executive chief coach" was there!  I have a shiny new Hublot Big Bang for the person who can explain (rationally) what the f*&(k an "executive chief coach" is...

Here's the thing - I am GLAD, THRILLED, ECSTATIC that Hublot "loves football" -  but what I'd really like to see is, I don't know, some of that Hublot "magic money" go to fund football in countries that actually really need the help.  Plenty of kids in India, Kenya, Tanzania, and other "less sexy" places like to play football too.  And continuing a partnership with FIFA which is about as corrupt as an organization gets is NOT something I would be proudly announcing.

Partnerships like these are beginning to get extremely cynical, but as a friend mentioned to me, it's not a bad business plan - create a partner watch and you're guaranteed to sell 40 or so pieces.

Here's the thing - Hublot is not a charity, it is a company that makes watches - very nice watches.  And they do a lot of good - but they don't publicize this good NEARLY enough.  When all I get in the "in box" is another "here we are with this famous person" it makes me feel a bit like the expectation  of Hublot's PR office is that we should all be sycophants, and just "drink the Kool-Aid".