Movado’s “SubSea” in a stainless steel brings a fresh look to the brand’s classic Museum dial. Suggested retail prices are $1,290 for blue retrograde dial, and $990 for two-toned dial.

At BaselWorld 2010, there was a feeling that things were looking up, economically, but the watch industry was not at all back to the carefree days of freewheeling consumer spending and increasing sales.

The recession sent Swiss watch export figures plummeting, down 22.3 percent in 2009 to 13.2 billion Swiss francs (about $12.3 billion), with U.S. exports down nearly 38 percent.

Modest increases in early 2010 brought some optimism, but brands remained chastened, eager to work with retail partners and customers to get in sync with the new consumer mindset.

The upshot at Basel? Many brands hit their archives to turn their greatest hits of the past into new classics, and executives said they would focus on growing business with current, rather than new, retailers.

Partnerships and pricing

Breitling’s retail distribution was among the casualties after Bailey Banks and Biddle, a onetime powerhouse for prestigious brands, shuttered its 70 stores across 24 states after parent company Finlay Fine Jewelry went bankrupt.

Now, Breitling is poised to work with retail partners that survived the downturn and are ready to grow again.

“We’ve maintained a steady distribution,” said Lisa Roman, marketing director at Breitling USA. “We don’t need to be everywhere … We have a strong, independent base of retailers.”

The brand is courting a younger crowd with the “Superocean,” a dive watch that was first released in 1957, and is priced at $2,995. Other new releases include the “Avenger Seawolf Chrono” in blackened steel, limited to 2,000 pieces, and an updated remake of the “Navitimer Cosmonaut,” touted as “the first watch in space,” and limited to 250 pieces.

Such limited editions abounded at Basel, as brands emphasized the desire to offer consumers something exclusive.

“The consumer needs to know that there is value for what they are buying,” Roman said of the new mindset of watch buyers.

The desire to please customers with affordable price points was no less important for smaller brands such as Chronoswiss, where the focus is on retail partnerships and brand messaging.

“We have to strengthen our relationship with the retailer,” said Hartmut Kraft, chief executive officer of Chronoswiss North America. “We have to make sure that the emotional
commitment is there.”

A U.S. market fixture for 12 years, Chronoswiss–whose new releases include the “Pacific” line, an updated version of its 1990s sports watch–manufactures just 6,000 watches per year, with all components produced in Switzerland and watches hand-finished in Germany.

The brand was in 60 doors when Kraft relocated from the company’s home in Munich, Germany, to the United States about two years ago, but Kraft said the original U.S. retail partners had not positioned the brand properly, so he cut them off and started from scratch.

When BaselWorld opened this year, the brand was in eight U.S. doors, including its own brand boutique operated by Mayfair Jewelers in New York’s SoHo neighborhood, as well as in upscale independent Hamilton Jewelers.

The company brought its retail pricing down by an average of 17 percent and as much as 40 percent, yielding prices mostly below $5,000.

Service is now handled in-house, by the factory, which has saved the company money and led to record return times, with a maximum of six weeks on the most complicated watches, and four to six weeks in general.

“With other Swiss brands, you might not see the watch for six months,” Kraft said.

Straight to the source

The desire to receive direct feedback from consumers was another common theme at BaselWorld this year.

Bulova’s consumer research to find out what consumers really want in a watch–accuracy or the continuously sweeping second-hand found in mechanical watches–revealed that 78 percent of those surveyed wanted both, prompting the introduction of the “Precisionist” platform, a quartz watch with a sweeping seconds hand and accuracy to 10 seconds per year, said Francie Abraham, Bulova’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer.

“We realized that people weren’t looking at watches as a piece of jewelry,” Abraham said. “It has to be good technology that enhances the look of the watch.”

The technology will be featured in various Bulova collections starting this fall, including “Tanglewood,” “Champlain,” “Longwood” and “Claremont,” at price points ranging from $299 to just under $1,000.

At Movado, consumer feedback suggests that customers are craving classics. New versions of the “Movado Master” again pay homage to the brand’s iconic Museum dial, while new limited-edition pieces done in collaboration with artist Kenny Scharf tighten the brand’s longtime ties to the arts.

For Movado, it seems that a focus on aspects of the brand that are most familiar to consumers has been paying off.

“There’s a general sense of optimism,” said Mary Leach, Movado’s chief marketing officer. “Most of our customers had to make some tough decisions last year, but this year, they’re feeling much more optimistic.”

In terms of marketing, Movado is continuing its relationship with young actress Amanda Seyfried, and its lower-priced line ESQ by Movado has a page on Facebook that generates useful fan feedback. This past winter, the page drew additional interest via a contest.

“They really love sharing [product information] through social networking,” Leach said of consumers. “That gives customers reassurance, because they’re hearing from other customers.”

Since price remains crucial to the customer, the brand is paying attention, she added. An automatic watch from ESQ by Movado is priced at $450, the Kenny Scharf limited-edition watch is $995 and the Movado Master is priced at $3,495 for the PVD version.

“We definitely look at how much value we give at every price point,”
Leach said.

Source: Nation Jeweler Network