Luxury Events Are Back. Is the Industry Ready?
This week, everyone will be talking about the first Swiss watch fair since the pandemic, a slew of American retail earnings and China's Qixi festival. Get your BoF Professional Cheat Sheet.
- Geneva Watch Days, a new event organised by Bulgari, Breitling and other brands, will run Aug. 24-26
- Brands will show new timepieces at hotels or their stores, rather than a central exhibition hall
- Many brands were already questioning the utility of watch fairs, with some focusing more on pitching directly to consumers
This spring, some of the watch world’s biggest brands gambled that Switzerland would get its pandemic under control in time to stage a new event, Geneva Watch Days, in late August. The jury is still out on that, but the industry's first watch fair of the Covid-19 era is set to go ahead this week, to be closely followed by the Richemont-heavy Watches & Wonders in Shanghai next month. Much like fashion shows, watch fairs have gone through something of an existential crisis in recent years, adopting more consumer-facing flourishes as buyers and journalists question the need to travel to Switzerland to check out new releases. Brands also want to bolster their connection to consumers, who may still splurge on “investment” pieces but, for daily use, increasingly prefer Apple Watches or no watches at all.
The high-end watch industry is still ticking despite all the upheaval. A 17 percent drop in Swiss watch exports in July counts as a win, after a 35 percent drop in June (it no doubt helps that a luxury watch is relatively easy to flex on a Zoom call). The industry’s most important market, China, was also the fastest to recover, with sales up 59 percent last month compared with a year ago.
The Bottom Line: Much like in fashion, the pandemic has exposed cracks in the system, including an over-reliance on wholesale and outmoded seasonal trade shows. Expect brands to use this year’s disruptions to make dramatic adjustments to how they market and sell watches.