Very true that. All those awful 90s quartz watches were popular with the buying public.
I wasn't really into watches that much back in the 80s and 90s, but I can imagine there was little in the way of dissent around the name change at the time... in fact I don't really remember it being such an issue until the vintage watch boom took off and they started producing watches with Heuer on the dials again.
Hey now. I take offense to that.
Send me all of those awful 90s quartz watches. I’ll… dispose of them properly 😁
I wasn't really into watches that much back in the 80s and 90s, but I can imagine there was little in the way of dissent around the name change at the time... in fact I don't really remember it being such an issue until the vintage watch boom took off and they started producing watches with Heuer on the dials again.
That's mainly because nobody cared about Heuer or any watch company's heritage back then. It would be a few years before mechanical watches became popular again as high-end pieces.
I bet many of us got into watches through the TAG Heuer logo seen at F1 races, I know I did.
Before I was into watches there were only two “luxury” brands that I knew of. Rolex and TAG Heuer. I was also bombarded with TAG’s over the top marketing, which made me think of them as being just as aspirational as Rolex. I still think of them that way.
Isn’t the confusing brand identity conundrum only an issue because some people just can’t accept change? People were more than happy when this made them popular, then suddenly change their tune.
I mean it’s nearly 40 years now!
There’s been many a reissue over time gaps shorter than that.
That’s a solid point. They are the master of their own identity and they didn’t even know who they wanted to be themselves.
But were they the chicken or the egg when deciding how they wanted to brand themselves over the past 4 decades? Meaning, did they do it off their own back or were they led by public opinion?
I am guessing less consumer led pre-social media perhaps?
To my mind the decision in 1999 was a good one. They were trying to draw a line under the past, and if they had stuck to it they would have made life a lot easier for themselves in the long run. But the vintage boom really messed things up for them....
I believe you got that one wrong, Rob: IMHO, vintage isn’t something bad that “happened” to the big brands, but they have consciously used their heritage to set themselves apart in the marketplace from the get go in the early 90s...
Heritage/Vintage is what allows TH to command a list price >3k for a Sellita AR, when any Swiss white label manufacturer could also put together a similar watch and sell it at a profit for a fraction of that price.
If you don’t have legitimate horological heritage (cf. Hublot or RM), you have to come up with another USP and your marketing expenses to establish/maintain it are probably going to be even more important.
Therefore, I wouldn’t be astonished to see the Heuer logo make a comeback on some dials under Tornare, especially if the market cools down further (and after waiting a bit, of course, so as not to offend the new Head Of Watchmaking at LVMH)… 😉
