Credits: Article and images by Oliver R Müller @ Revolution Watch Magazine. See the original article here - https://revolutionwatch.com/the-revolution-success-index/
In five years from 2004 to 2007, Biver increased Hublot’s sales fivefold which attracted the attention of LVMH who then bought the brand in 2008 for CHF 430 million. Biver cashed in an estimated CHF 86 million and continued to manage the brand until 2014 when he received the mission of bringing TAG Heuer and Zenith back on track. Biver tried what any successful brand manager does, by applying a recipe which had proven to be magical already three times. He tried to give more visibility to the brands by product placements in movies and brand endorsements by celebrities.
During the four years until 2018, Biver and his teams tried all the recipes, but didn’t really manage to bring either TAG Heuer or Zenith back on the path of growth. To be fair, the expectations towards Zenith are not in line with the brand’s intrinsic potential. Everyone sees it as one of the legendary names of the Swiss watch industry, besides owning the iconic El Primero movement. TAG Heuer has been at the forefront of modern-day branding but somehow got lost in trying to reinvent mechanical concepts, such as the V4 or the Mikrograph which were technical marvels, but generated abyssal losses for bottom-line.
Will the last act of Mr. Biver’s recital, the eponymous Biver brand, be successful? Certainly, commercially speaking, but will it become a sustainable brand in the long run after Mr. Biver’s stay on earth ? Time will tell, but the watch industry will remember a marketing pioneer who based all his success stories on the same sound principles: Be first, unique and different!
Credits: Article and images by Oliver R Müller @ Revolution Watch Magazine. See the original article here - https://revolutionwatch.com/the-revolution-success-index/