New heritage director at TAG Heuer

HoltzPlatz

Here's a lengthy interview with Nick on Australia's Watchtime from a coupla days ago. He's looking rather dapper with that Cal. 15 Monaco too.👍
https://www.watchadvice.com.au/1801...buyck-global-heritage-director-for-tag-heuer/

bpsmith

I agree it’s an interesting read. There were two elements that stood out for me.

Firstly, he confirmed what has already been discussed on here lately, in that they are hoping to move to a new customer base with deeper pockets and not cater for the rest of us.

Secondly, they appear to also confirm that they have historically put poor movements in the Aquaracer as the customer doesn’t appear to care. They mention that they are looking to rectify this, but appear to be a long way off stopping the use of those rubbish SW200’s. Probably due to it being a mass market cash cow that they need to retain until they have more fully switched to this new customer they desire. It’s a good job that the everyday customer doesn’t care what movement is in the Aquaracer, for obvious reasons sales wise!

Aquagraph

watch market is in perpetual decline and the only way to survive is to charge more for less

Aquagraph

If, as we believe, 40-50% of their customers are buying quartz powered F1s, this is a big move. The problem with customers with deeper pockets is they probably do more research. Most rich men I've met are dead set on getting value for money, they don't mind spending money as long as they think what they are getting is fairly priced. And the other thing is that TAG have many years of being the butt of the watch industry's jokes. Those people buying £1200 F1s probably don't care, but trying to persuade rich people to buy TAG over Omega or Rolex is going to be very difficult. I wonder how long it will take before they decide they need to reset to 'affordable luxury' like they did in 2015? Or maybe they see that the watch market is in perpetual decline and the only way to survive is to charge more for less?

Aquagraph

It might, but if you were looking to go upmarket would you go round telling people your entry level quartz watches were your biggest sellers?

Mspeedster

You have a point, especially given where Frederic wants to take the brand.

OTOH, we typically only get a few new F1s released each year, and usually it's the same ones (i.e. Indy 500, Senna etc.). Compare that to the number of new Carreras each year, not just this year, but in years past too. From an investment perspective, this aligns with Frederic's statement about the Carrera.

bpsmith

I guess it depends on what your goal was, when measuring how successful any one model is.

If you sell 20 billion F1’s a year, but your goal is to take the brand upmarket, then it’s a complete failure!

Gene242

Could be a case of F1 leading the race in volumes, of watches sold per unit while Carrera having higher total overall, with their price tag they can sell half as many units and easily surpass F1 sales

Mspeedster

Frederic's statement was in response to product sales.

Could be. But since none of us have that data, it's just speculation.

The investment money TAG puts into the Carrera is something we can all see. If the F1 is so successful, I'd think we'd see more new models introduced as well.

bpsmith

I was just giving an example on different measures of success. I could equally have used sales volume vs sales revenue.

What if the F1 is already so successful without any investment in regular new models? Leaving them to just focus on small Carrera’s then…

bpsmith

What if the F1 is already so successful without any investment in regular new models? Leaving them to just focus on small Carrera’s then…