LVMH executives on 2020

[Alansmithee]

Some interesting bits in here - I've picked out a few:

TAG:

• In a pronounced shift, Mr. Bianchi said TAG Heuer would focus its partnerships on motor sports and individual sports, moving away from many connections arranged by his predecessor, Jean-Claude Biver, who was often quoted as saying that he wanted to see the brand “everywhere.”
• TAG Heuer would introduce a new website in line with its “strong ambitions around retail and digital.” Those include opening new TAG Heuer boutiques even as the company stops working with some of its third-party retail network (it ended 20 percent of those relationships last year).
• TAG Heuer will make new timepieces available immediately, following the see-now/buy-now concept that fashion brands have embraced in recent years, some with mixed results. For TAG Heuer, Mr. Bianchi said, “It doesn’t make sense to show a watch and then not sell it for six months.”

Hublot:

• Hublot intends to introduce the Big Bang Integral, an evolution of the brand’s most recognizable model, offering a collection of bracelets in titanium, gold and ceramic.
• Mr. Guadalupe said he believed that Hublot could produce as many as 80,000 watches a year during the next decade, but that that would be its limit.

Zenith:

• Zenith had increased its annual production to 23,000 pieces from 21,000
• "A few years ago, no brand wanted to hear about e-commerce, but now look at where we are. The same with customization."
• “Secondhand was ‘the gray market’ and it was dirty and no one wanted to hear about it,” he continued. “Now, we’re all thinking about how we do it and how we get our part of the pie, because it’s big business.”
• a focus on sales to consumers rather than to retailers, who might or might not actually sell the timepieces, had helped stimulate performance.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/12/f...er-zenith.html

[Olives]

Lvmh as a group is a powerhouse, but decline in quality in their fashion houses and the Instagram thirst for the latest new thing has shown that stuff is released to generate fast sales. Long term, this business model is set to over supply and devalue the brands.

[earlofsodbury]

[*]a focus on sales to consumers rather than to retailers...[/LIST]
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/12/f...er-zenith.html

This happened to high-end audio a decade ago and more, and has been the death of many midfield players. It's also hurt some of the big, high-end names because consumers focus only on price and superficial appearance - actual quality eludes almost everyone.

It also places major pressure on what are frequently p*ss-poor customer service departments, unused and uninterested in dealing F2F with extremely annoyed/unreasonable/actually-batsh*t-insane customers...

Upside is, it's good for the more reactive and nimble micros.

[Lammylee]

Here’s a link to the new Hublot Integral, I actually like it.


https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/hu...al-introducing

[MrBanks]

That means that the business will no longer work with top-tier soccer leagues in Germany or Spain and that it will not extend its relationships with the model Cara Delevingne and the graffiti artist Alec Monopoly.

Good news.

[Andy K]

[*]TAG Heuer will make new timepieces available immediately, following the see-now/buy-now concept that fashion brands have embraced in recent years, some with mixed results. For TAG Heuer, Mr. Bianchi said, “It doesn’t make sense to show a watch and then not sell it for six months.”

I'm all for narrowing the window between revealing novelties and then actually having them ready for sale. The prevailing practice is a remnant of the decades-old model that was oriented around the authorized dealers, back when the end consumer wouldn't be aware of a new watch until it hit shelf of their local jeweler or showed up in a magazine ad anyway. But new releases being available immediately means the manufacturer either needs to be very good at predicting demand or they need to be ready to deal with loads of unsold goods.