Being Authentic

What are the biggest lessons that you learned from your time building brands, at both Cartier and IWC?

Well, I think if I get one basic message is, you have to be authentic and credible. If you are a marketeer, you tend to come up with fancy ideas and you get advertising agencies come up to you every two minutes presenting new ideas, great ideas. At the end of the day, the customer is very savvy. They will look through anything that’s remotely just a fad or short-term oriented. If people spend a large portion of their savings or have saved up for a product over many years, and they’ve dreamt of owning any sort of luxury watch. They want to make sure it really is something that you buy for 25 years plus or hand it down to your children. Everything else fades away. You have to be authentic, credible. The quality has to be irreproachable. That’s what it boils down to. Short-term, you can update, you can animate your brand, but never ever forget these core pillars of the brand because that’s at the end of the day makes people decide for your brand rather than another brand.