Jean-Claude Biver (Live From HODINKEE 10)¶
Published on Mon, 24 Dec 2018 11:00:00 +0000
Two legends talk about the rebirth and future of the watch industry at large.
Synopsis¶
In this special live episode recorded at the Hodinkee 10th Anniversary weekend in New York City, host Joe Thompson conducts an extensive conversation with legendary watch industry figure Jean-Claude Biver. Biver, who made a day trip from Zurich specifically for the event, discusses his remarkable career spanning Blancpain, Omega, Hublot, Tag Heuer, and other iconic brands. He shares his philosophy of being contrarian and swimming against the current, explaining why he launched Blancpain as a purely mechanical brand in 1982 during the height of the quartz crisis—a decision influenced by his hippie background and belief in authenticity, craftsmanship, and eternal values over disposable technology.
Biver reveals numerous startup strategies and "tricks" he employed when building brands with limited resources, from creative Basel Fair presentations to strategic retail seeding. He emphasizes the importance of respecting a brand's DNA and heritage rather than imposing personal vision, drawing on lessons learned from working with various legendary watchmakers. Throughout the discussion, he addresses health challenges that led to recent changes in his LVMH position while demonstrating his characteristic determination and unique relationship with his body and mind. The conversation covers topics including his approach to failures and mistakes as essential learning tools, the development of accessible luxury like Tag Heuer's affordable tourbillon, his admiration for brands like Patek Philippe and Rolex, and his concerns about engaging millennials with mechanical watches to ensure the industry's future growth.
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Transcript¶
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| Unknown | Alright, you're in for a real treat this week. We're now two weeks removed from the Hodinki 10th anniversary weekend in New York City, and of all the panels, live discussions, and events from that weekend, there's one that I just can't stop thinking about, and that was our own Joe Thompson, easily the most experienced and knowledgeable person writing about the watch industry today, sitting down with industry legend Jean-Claude Beaver for well over an hour of candid conversation about Beaver's history in the business, some early tricks they gave him a leg up, and where he sees things going in the next 20 or 30 years. If you've never had the opportunity to hear Jean Claude speak, I don't really know what I can say here to prepare you. He's unbelievably passionate, thoughtful, savvy, and a complete force of nature. With that, I'm just gonna shut up and get out of the way here. I'm your host, Stephen Pulverant, and this is Hodinky Radio Live. This week's episode is brought to you by Tag Hoyer. Stay tuned later in the episode to learn more about a new Hoyer Octavia. You can also visit Taghoyer.com to learn more. Jean-Claude, welcome. I want to let everybody know. Jean-Claude has come from Zurich today on a day trip just for this event, just for the Hadinki H10 he flew from Zurich this morning and then he'll fly back to Zurich tonight. A little bit about the program. First of all, if I can ask everybody to put your cell phones on mute. The format will be a few questions from me, and then we want to throw it open to you. You will have seen the title of the uh the panel is uh The Past, the Present and the Future. It is wide open. Feel free to ask whatever you want. You know his career. Blancpan, Omega, Ublo, Tagvoyer, Smartwatches, whatever you want to ask, ask. Feel free to ask. Um so maybe we can start. Yes. The first question is not as simple as it sounds. The question is: how are you? And by that I mean we've heard the news that you have recently changed your position at LVMH and health reasons were a factor. So can you give us an update on how you're doing and what you're doing |
| Unknown | ? Yes, to fly in and fly out the same day, it saves you a night of hotel. To fly in and to fly out the same day should not be a problem for anybody, because it's not a distance. It you know, nine hour flight in, eight hours flight out, everybody could do it. The problem is that people don't have the mentality. And people think, oh, this is long, you go to New York, my goodness, and you come back same day. It's just a question of mentality. And that is one thing that is important in life. Everything is here. And I always have considered that I have two separate elements. I am made of two elements: my head and my body. The body is my vehicle, it's a car. And at three o'clock in the morning when I get up, I say to the body, get up. And the body says, uh yes, you get up, and the body gets up. For at the during this moment when the body gets up, my head is still in bed, but the body is up. And then I say to the body, okay, go downstairs to the kitchen, make a coffee. And the buddy goes down and he makes a coffee. And then he tells me, coffee ready. And okay, I say then the head gets up and the head comes down to the body. Thank you, buddy. And I drink my coffee. And then I say to the body, now bring me to my office. I have to check a few mails. And the body brings me to the to the computer, to my office. So when you have this separation, you can do anything with your body. There is no limit. Now, because there is no limit, I have treated the body as if he would be eternal. The body I realized uh has a limited time uh to live and probably l mine will be like hundred years. So uh nevertheless, although my head thinks that the body will last for another thirty years, last year, I don't know what happened to the body, but he needed some service. Um and uh I had to slow down because I couldn't ask him anymore, because this poor guy was sick. So the body went to hospital. I stayed at home, but the body went to hospital. The body went to hospital and he got injections and this, cortisol, all this normal treatment you get in the hospitals. And the treatment started in September last year, and the body still needs treatment today. So every day cortisone and once a week chemotherapy. And uh for me, my head now believes and I tell the body, hey hey, now it's enough. Stop it now. Because don't tell me you need anything. So I said to him: let's make a trial. Let's see if we travel. Let's see how you react. So in the last three weeks, I went every week one time to Asia, back home Switzerland, and then to America. The week after, one time to Asia, back home for one night, boom, and to America. And this week I came back on Thursday from Hong Kong, and today I'm in New York. And the body, you know what? He says, God damn, I had lost to get used to this treatment. But I feel very well. I said, whoa. So now we are partners again. He said, yes. We can we can start again.. Okay So that was the answer. |
| Unknown | Let's go back to nineteen eighty-two and Blanc Pan. And if you'll allow me, just for the gang, to set up the stage so that everybody understands, because I'm guessing that not everybody remembers 1982 as well as we do. In 1982, you and your buddy Jacques Piquet acquired the rights to the Blanc Pan brand. Also in 1982, coincidentally, in San Antonio, Texas, ETA. ETA is test marketing. Test marketing. The swatch watch. So for you to be thinking about a mechanical brand at that period is really early. This is way before the mechanical watch revival. This is in the thick of the court's watch crisis. And obviously, that Tomke and Etta they were trying to shift from mechanical technology to quartz technology to save the industry. You come not only to market, you come to market, not only with a mechanical brand, but a dead mechanical brand, dormant for two decades on an anti-quartz platform. T |
| Unknown | ell us, why did you do that? Because of Confucius. Confucius, because I was a hippie and we were reading Confucius, although we didn't understand much. But it was important to have the book. So once you have the book means you understand. So uh and confist you said many things, but one of those important elements that I remember and that I understood. Only the dead fish swims with the current. So if you have a river and you have a current, the dead fish goes with the current. The fish that is alive goes left, right of the current, or back, or if he goes in the direction of the current, he goes two times quicker than the current. And the dead fish stinks. And stinks from the head. This is why you must always check the head. So I said when we were hippie, God tell them we will never want to be dead fish. Which means I have developed a philosophy always to be different, always to be first. Always to be unique. If you are first, different unique, you cannot lose. It's like if you play play poker and you have four aces in the your head, you cannot lose. It's impossible. So that was the mentality. If you are driven by such a mentality, always to be first, different, unique, always to swim against the current, which means in the stock market to be contrarian, to buy when everybody is in panic and sells. Uh your big boss uh Warren Buffett is a specialist of doing this. Now all the guys are selling, selling, the stock market will go to bankrupt, everything will disappear, and people are selling like crazy. And the people that are contrarian, they stay quiet and they buy every day a little bit. At the end, you make a fortune by being contrarian. So, by being driven to be contrarian, being driven to be first, different, unique, and being driven by the hippie mentality. You know, in Europe today, there's a big problem with the climate. In America, the president doesn't believe in it, but Europeans, you know how they are. They are very much left sided, they think left. And when you are left, you are in the romantic world, you are in the world of generosity, you are in the world of sharing. And as a hippie, we were in this world and we believed in bio. Today in Europe, we start to eat bio. Okay, maybe it's real or fake, but at it at least they sell you as if it would be bio. And I was used when in 1966 to eat bio. Later I gave it up. But in this period we were very keen to eat very special rice. We were not buying Uncle Ben's. We had special rice because Uncle Ben's was a white rice and rice is not white. So it already has been transformed. And we were always thinking that nature is what happened what is the most important. Nature, planet Earth is our God. That was our belief. If this is your belief, then you also believe in a fountain pain. Fountain pen meisterstück maublan. This was the pen we were using. Everybody, nobody was using this fountain pens in the in the in the end of the 70s. But we were using it and we were writing sh with this ink. We were found of jaguar inside conoly leather. Connoli leather. The smell, you enter the car, wow, you don't need to That's the beauty of those cars. Which is good because sometimes they don't work. So you don't care. You don't care. You sit in the, you know, in the atmosphere. So being driven by all this, how could we adhere, how could we go into quartz? Quartz is not a watch, it's an instrument of technology. It's a computer. It has a battery. It has a microchip. So we said this is not the future because the future is something that is connected to eternity. What is connected to eternity? Of course, God if you believe in God. But what else if you don't believe in God? What else is connected to eternity? Art. The art of Mozart is still here. Every day, millions of people are listening to Mozart or to the Beatles or looking at Picasso. Art is eternal, the art of the Greek architecture is still there. So Weber said, art is eternal and watchmaking art is also eternal. Big Ben, 150 years old. It still works. There is no instrument on planet Earth that works after 150 years. There's no mechanical engine or instrument that works after 150 years, except watches and big band, 24 hours, every second it works, and it has never stopped to work. So we believed in this theory of eternity. And being driven by those elements that I have now mentioned, it was very natural that we were going contrarian and that we said in the block advertisement, the day I sold the brand, a few years later I left management and uh I quit from the management. And they immediately changed our uh slogan and our slogan, our headline was since 1735, there has never been a Blancin, watch a Blancin, quartz watch, dot, and there will never be one. Wow. And people were reading this in the newspaper, saying, how can these people say that when everybody says it's the meca it's the quartz watch that will save the industry. So we were completely contrarian. And being contrarian, we opened a niche of people that were like us, they came from the hippie uh time. We all had the same mentality. So we had this new generation in the 80s. We were all 40 years old, and these people suddenly had the power, had uh sufficient uh money to buy a watch, and they all were reluctant to buy a cheap, or not cheap, but uh a simple uh quartz watch. So this is why we did it. There was another reason because there are sometimes many reasons. The fourth reason was that my partner is Jacques Piget. And Jacques Piget is the boss owner of Frederick Piguet. And Frederick Piguet is among the finest Swiss movement maker that has ever existed. His grand-grandfather was called the Louis-Élysée Piget, the most beautiful grand complication, Grand Sonry, Sonnery, Repetition Minute were all from Louis Élise Piget. And Jacques Piget in 1980, in 1981, in 1982, but in 81 he had nine people working in his factory. Nine, not ten, nine. Why? Because he was going bankrupt, because nobody wanted mechanical watches. Everybody wanted quartz, quartz, quartz, quartz. And Jacques had an interest to partner with me and to relaunch thanks to Blancpin the mechanical watch. So we played a role as a market opener. We had to open the market and that role we played. And there was one company, one gentleman, one great man that I admire, that I respect, and that is why I collect, was Mr. Philip Stern from Patek Philip. He wrote a letter in 1982 because we had a big ad in a Swiss newspaper since 1735. There's never been a blanc park quartz and there will never be one. He wrote us a letter and said, congratulations, I wish you good luck. That is why we |
| Unknown | went mechanical. Very good. You were though flowing against the tide. Maybe you can talk to us about launching the brand and going to your your first Basel Fair, going there with a brand nobody's heard of and a technology nobody wants. How'd that work out |
| Unknown | ? Yes, when you are uh when uh nobody uh when you are a startup, we wear a startup because uh we bought the brand for 22,000 US dollars. But the brand was not existing. It was just the name. The brand had gone out of business 20 years before. And we didn't have yeah, we didn't have money, that's it. And when you have no money, we went to Basel Fair with a camping bus. And we are sleeping in the camping bus. It was a Volkswagen Westphalia, which is a great nice uh nice camping bus. I bought one with then when I had the money. I bought one ten years ago and I said to my wife, now we're gonna with camping bus to Greece. She said what? Yeah. And we take the dogs. Quoi? And we take the kids. All in the Westphalia camping bus. Going to Greece with the camping bus. So you see, I've never forgotten this incredible period of the camping bus. And so we were sleeping in the camping bus uh behind the Basel Fair near the railway station. And uh in the morning we had to shave and to clean. So we went to the railway station putting uh uh one Swiss franc and shower for three minutes. Uh so and then we went with a nice tie, uh went to Basel Fair and we said where do you stay? We said well we stay in the Hilton uh but but we had to catch attention and in order to catch attention, because we had no collection, Blanper was one watch. It was a moon phase watch, one watch. And it existed in two uh versions: uh 33 millimeter and 33.3 millimeter diameter, and we had one version in steel and one steel and gold. And that's it, only two. If you have two watches and you have a boost, and in those days, in the Basel, everybody was showing watches. So uh brands had 30, 40 watches in their different showcases. As we had only two watches to show, and you know, if you show two, it makes very poor. We decided we show none. So we had the booth with a wall. No showcase. And everybody came and looked what's that and it was written instead of the Hodik it was written blow and people said but blow pa blow we never heard about it or some people said I remember 30 years ago. But what are they doing? So we had to catch attention. Because we showed no watches, everybody spoke about us. And everybody said, have you seen the watch? So that was our strategy. We had another, you know, when you are startup you must think startup. This is why big groups, they can never develop a startup in theory. Because big groups they don't think startup. They think consolidated technocracy. So there was another element in the beginning, we had customers, and customers were a little bit reluctant. And we had a strategy, and it worked very well in Zermad. Zermad is a ski resort, because we were sending people to buy our watches in the shop. And in Zermat, there's a shop called Schindler. And Schindler, he was reluctant. I was making a running marathon with him, but even I was running militant, he said, I don't want your watch. Okay, okay. So finally he bought two, one and one. I mean, it's two, it was two thousand dollars to buy. But in the mountains, people are very careful, and two thousand dollars is a lot of money in the mountains. They you know they think really uh that's why they are so rich at the end. Uh you find more rich people up in the mountains than in the cities. So Sindla bought two. I have sent friends. I said, okay, you go to Zelmat and you buy me a watch. So I gave the money, and uh my friend went up and bought the watch. He spent a nice day in Zermatt, it was nice, he skied, and he bought a watch. And then the sister of my wife, I said to her, the same, you buy a watch. So they went for the weekend, they bought a watch. On Monday morning, Shindo calls me. God damn, I sold the two watches. I gotta buy five. And so that's how we started, you know, and we did this. We did this with uh many other people. So uh |
| Unknown | one one more one more on this phase and it'll be the last for me in this round and we'll throw it open. So think about your questions. But you also managed somehow to open the great Tiffany and Company here in New York City. How'd you do that |
| Unknown | ? Yes, uh, I played the same game more or less. I made I made an appointment with uh Mr. Tiffany uh Kowalski. He was the boss of uh buying, he was purchasing the partner. And I got a tell I got in touch with him by phone. And um yeah, I said, listen, uh I am in Switzerland. I'm interested to see you, to sell you my brand. He said, blah, blah, blah. I'm not so much interested. Don't lose time with me. I said, no, no, we will not lose time. Probably you have a little uh sandwich at uh for lunch and uh we can eat the sandwich together and while eating we can speak and if after 20 minutes I have told you uh nothing interesting at least you haven't sp uh lost time because uh you have to eat your sandwich anyhow. And he agreed. So uh he said yes and I said I come uh tomorrow. He said I'll come. I say I take the Concord. But I was already in New York |
| Unknown | . Everybody remembers the Concorde, right? No, uh three and a half hours. Hours to New York |
| Unknown | . And in reality I flew with uh with a very cheap tick ticket uh which was called standby. You had to wait till till they call you and say, hey, we have three tickets and you were running buying one for 180 Swiss francs. So uh yeah that this was the type of tricks we did. We also did at Basel Fair one year when we had to make showcases because we were obliged. The Basel Fair told us: if you don't put showcases, this wall we don't want next year. We want that you do, like the other booths, a nice showcases. So we did showcases. And on Wednesday evening, the fair opens Thursday. On Wednesday evening, my friend who worked with me said, what a shit that we have these showcases. Uh it's terrible. People will just think that we are like the others. I said, yes. At least here they will think that we are like the others. He said, you know what? I will break the showcase. I said, what? So he took a hammer and he broke the showcase. And I said, and now leave it like this. And people will be surprised when the fair opened to see this. And we will we can always say somebody has stolen, somebody has uh we broke the showcase. And there was a broken showcase on the other morning. And that made the news. So it's always when you are a startup, you must be in the news. Especially when you have no money. So there was nothing dangerous. It it is romantic what we did. It was, you know, harmless. But these little tricks, uh people that go to Harvard business school, they don't don't learn them. This is why I go every that is why I go every year to Howard and I tell the boys and girls that are there what we did. Because technocracy I cannot teach, but startup development I can teach. So I wrote a little book for the Howard Business School, for the students, where I mention all these little tricks, which are, you know, very harmless, it's a little bit naive. But it works. And I think today in our technocratic world, it works even better than before. So, whoever is in a startup, he can, I will give him my address and I can send a few tricks |
| Unknown | . All right. On that one point, I didn't know you would bring this up. I'll make one comment. Uh Professor Ryan Raffaeli has done a study, a hard business school study based on John Claude's career. And I happen to know Professor Raffaeli, he's a lovely guy. We both know him independently. And he told me the story that oh it's great, Jean-Claude comes to speak to my students every year. And he's so inspirational, but he can be like a little too inspirational, he told me, after hearing you, one young lady who was attending the Harvard Business School dropped out based on the themes you've just been talking about. |
| Unknown | And now a message from this week's sponsor. Hello, I'm Hodinki Editor-in-Chief Jack Forster. Watchmaking and watchmakers, at their best, have always understood that a really great watch has to combine amazing technology with equally outstanding design. Few watches ever achieve this goal, but the ones that do are remembered and cherished for generations. In the world of sports chronographs, the name of Taghoyer represents an unparalleled history in making watches that do exactly that. One of the most iconic is the legendary reference 1163, which was created in partnership with Viceroy and Parnelli Jones Racing in 1972. For today, Taghoyer has recreated the 1163's vivid black and red color scheme in an all-new Ottavia and mated it with an engine, the caliber 02, that represents a marriage of the best in traditional and modern watchmaking. You can find out all about it at taghoyer.com and now back to the show |
| Unknown | . All right, who has some questions for John-Claude Bivaire? |
| Unknown | Yes, sir. Okay, Mr. Bivaire, uh, a year and a half ago, I was very lucky to hear you come and speak in Springfield, New Jersey. And at that time you invited us to ask questions, and it took me a while to come up with this. So uh with BlancPon, with Omega, with Ublow, with Zenith, with Taghoir, you have come into these organizations and in a short period of time clarified the vision of the brand. And I wonder if you could please talk a little bit about what you've done to develop that skill and what you do to maintain the clarity of your thinking? |
| Unknown | I think it's uh the first element is the respect of the brand. You know, if you take Carl Lagerfeld, he works for a few brands, but you will never notice that it is Karl Lagerfeld, because he will respect each brand for itself. When he designs for Chanel, it's typically Chanel. And many designers or many CEOs, they want to put their own trace, their own mark. And that is the worst thing you can do. Because you will die much earlier than the brand. The brand is the boss. And you have to adapt to the brand. If you design, if you do, if I design a tag hoyer watch like I like it. I'm wrong because I should design a Tag Hoyer watch for the Tag Hoyer customer, not for me. And in the beginning I had people telling me, wow, this, Mr., how can you design such a watch? I said, what are you talking about? Yeah, but I don't like it at all. But that's not the problem. You I I'm not designing it for you. I'm designing it for the tag or your And I respect the brand. In order to respect the brand, you must be humble. Respect is an act of love. You must have a certain, yeah, you must be humble and you must uh uh uh go down deep into the tradition in the blood. I used to say, before we touch, we must speak to the death. We must go to the cemetery where we have 1,300 people that are buried. They all have worked for Zenith, and we have to talk to these people. How do we talk? You go to the cemetery and you just stay there for one hour and you do nothing, and you think about Zenith. You just think. Slowly, slowly, you get the language of the death is coming up from the graves. They tell you the story, and you get it. And the more you get these stories, the more you will understand what they have done, the more you will understand their passion, the more you will understand how much love they have put in the in the brand. And as soon as you have understood it, you will say, God damn, I cannot damage this. I must continue it. I'm not here to change it. I must continue. That is what I call the respect and the humility you must have when you enter a brand. And when you do that, you enter the DNA of the brand, and once you are in the DNA of the brand, you know where you go. Of course, what was right in 1932 is not necessarily right today, but the DNA can be the same. I don't look like when I was 18 today, but my DNA is still the same. My fingerprints are the same. So that is the important element that many, many, many, many people forget. You know, even simple designer, you go for an advertising concept, they will they, or you go to an architect for your house. They want to impose their views to you. And I always say to these guys, come on, I'm the boss and I I'm here to defend the brand. And the brand is telling you that this is not right. How can you say that? You must be modern, you must connect to the future. I say, fuck you. I I must. I must I must not connect to the future. I must connect first to the brand. And once I am connected to the brand, then I go with the brand to the future |
| Unknown | . Alright, let's have another one. I I can't say any other one. Hand in the back. There's a a hand raised. I'm sorry, I can barely see. Oh, look who it is |
| Unknown | . Look who it is. What's happening, people? Mr. Viv. Lovely to speak to you, honor your work. Look, I'm a designer starting up a company myself, brother, so I understand exactly what you're saying. I'm of the belief that there is no such thing as negativity or a loss in a situation. I believe there's always an opportunity in what may present itself as a loss or a deficit. So my question to you is, what has been what have been some of your greatest reactions or responses to maybe a loss or a downturn in business |
| Unknown | yes uh this is a it's a good question because you are right a loss cannot be a loss I always say if you have no failures, you will never have a success. You can only go to success thanks to steps that are bringing you up, and each step is a failure. Failure one, boom, and then you do a second one. It means you have to do a series of mistakes or failures before you reach success. That is my theory. Because of this, I must forgive my people. If I cannot accept the failures of my people, my people will stay afraid of initiatives and they will not be dynamic. They will be passive. A dynamic manager, a dynamic person is a person that will make mistakes. And I suggest, which I say to the Howard students and to all the other universities, I said, hey guys, you are 25, 23 years old. Come on, do mistakes. You should have one mistake a week. And then that means you are progressing. If you have no failures, if you have no mistake, that means you are not taking any risk. So the mistake, the failure process is extremely important, especially for young people. And it's important to do the big mistakes when you are young because you have 50 years to recover. If I do a big mistake at 70 years old, I don't have much time to recover. So it's better than I have done the mistakes before. So the mistake policy is extremely important. I have done at Hublu uh failure meetings. Once every three months, people come and everybody has to tell me three mistakes he did. And in the beginning, nobody had done a mistake. So I said, you are all sleeping. This is why Hublow is so bad. I want I want mistakes. And then after the next one, it was three months later, so it was after six months. Again, nobody had a mistake to communicate. So I said next time, the next session, I will pay thousand dollars per mistake. So the next time a young man said I did a mistake. Ah, finally. Okay, which one? Because we wanted to learn, you know. If I share with you my mistakes, you will learn from my mistakes, and then you share the ones with me. So he said, ah, I bought some bags um for the jewelers, you know, to put the the box uh in the in the bag. Okay? And what? Yes, I bought hundred thousand bags. I said, pardon, hundred thousand? We were producing eight thousand nine hundred watches per year. He said yes I ordered hundred thousand because I got a better price. I said Benjamino why is that possible? He said, Yes, you asked me to tell you mistakes. That was one of my mistakes. I said, okay, I will I will call the bookkeeper, Mr. Orio. I called Mr. Oreo. I said, Mr. Oreo, please prepare a cheque of 1,000 Swiss francs for Benjamino. He just gave us a mistake. And before Mr. Orio, the bookkeeper could come, Benjamino said, Ah, but that's not all. I won two thousand because I did another mistake. So he said, I said, what's that? No, no, it's just a consequence because hundred thousand is such a volume. Hublow was in a small apartment of uh, you know, we did it was we were 30 people or 29 people, so it was very small, and he said we cannot store them so we had to rent a garage so you see uh uh now from which mistakes have I learned? Um I have learned from the mistakes of others more than from myself because I have never been somebody who takes a decision alone. I listen to people, you know, I'm driven by something that people hate, it's my doubt. The doubt is my friend. And I have incredible doubts. And uh the doubt is my friend, but my wife says sometimes the doubt is your enemy. Because when the doubt comes, I am quiet, I can I'm not laughing, I'm not talking, I am together with the doubt and I'm fighting with him. And the doubt wakes me up at two o'clock in the morning, one o'clock, and I cannot sleep anymore. And I have to go down and I have to check. So I'm talking with the doubt constantly. And then I have third people I have other people that are around me and I talk to them too. Once people have given me their uh opinion, once I have checked several times with my doubts, I make a decision. So usually the decision that I make is not done bam on the spot. It's it's it seems quick, maybe for certain people, but not quick for me because I I work a lot. So I have not made uh so many, but there's one mistake I have learned not to make anymore. It's to think that when you buy a luxury product, a hundred thousand dollar watch, which is very unusual, but there are quite some people, that how long will it take when you have done a hundred thousand dollar watch till this customer who wears a hundred thousand dollar watch buys a second one? And we used, and I have corrected this, we used to believe it takes a few years. Because we were we knew that if somebody buys a thousand dollar watch, it takes him seven to ten years before he buys a second one. And a hundred thousand must be at least the same the hundred thousand dollar watch it takes eventually three months and then he buys a second one uh maximum five months. So he will buy two or two, three pieces. And that is something we have ignored at Blancpin. So it means we had people putting our watch on the wrist, and because they wanted the second one at the same price or even more expensive, they couldn't find it because we had our collection, our concept, we didn't want to make too many pieces. With Hublou, I have learned that we have never we must never lose the wrist. If somebody wears a Hublow, he must wear Hublow for 10 years. But as he buys three a year, we must provide him sufficient varieties, sufficient uh uh uh argumentation so that he can buy tree every year. But how can he buy three if we have a monoproduct by making special edition, by making special pieces, limited edition. And all the collectors, the serious collectors, they always say, oh, Hublot, uh uh again, a special edition. Hublow makes only special edition. Of course, because we uh go we don't want to lose the risk of people who are buying three watches a year. And so this is a mistake that I have done once with Blancin, not to feed the people who buy three or five watches at 100,000 with Hubleau, thanks to this special edition. And why this special edition? Because we want the basic collection always to be clean. And then we do here, left and right, special edition, that disappear as soon as they are sold out. So we keep a very clean collection, in fact, for the production, because 80% is our core business, and 20% are the special edition that are dying once they have been sold out. And how can they die when they are sold out? Because when we do the piece and we say oh god how many how many can we sell ah mr beaver we can sell 500 pieces okay let's make 250 another one, how many can how much can we c how many can we sell? Hmm, maybe two hundred. Let's make hundred. It means we have always done half of the potential that we thought so that the special edition is sold out as soon as possible. Because as soon as it is sold out, there is no trace because we can keep the core collection going on |
| Unknown | . All right, let's take another one. Question? All right, sir. Um, Mr. Beaver, uh you uh are a contrarian and have shaken up the watch industry, and for many of us collectors, the torbill was the the ultimate complication. And a couple of years ago, uh tag came out with a, I don't want to call it in affordable, but a uh in accessible. Accessible uh torbion. What impact did that strategically have on the rest of the watch industry |
| Unknown | and where can we see it go from from here? First of all, I think it has taught people that the Toubion is not the ultimate masterpiece. The ultimate masterpiece is, thanks God, the Mino Tupita. And after the Mini Tropita is the split second chronograph. And believe me, a split second chronograph is a hell of a lot more difficult to produce than turbio. So it has put uh a new uh truth and it has of course probably uh hurt some believe because it's more easy to believe that the to be is the ultimate. Now why have we done it? Because that is the the the the that is the first uh answer. We have done it because the message of the brand called Tag Hoyle is to be avant-garde, T A G technique avant-garde, so we have to be avant-garde. Number two, we have to be the accessible luxury brand. Those two elements were extremely important. And number three, we must have a perceived value that is double our retail price. So when we were fixing the price, we were saying this watch looks like what? It looks like a $50,000 watch. Okay, let's try to make it for $20,000. The perceived value of the Toubion of Tag Hoyo is at least 50 or 60,000. But how can we achieve to make a perceived value at 60,000 and to make the turbulion at 50, at 20. Because we the whole thinking has changed. We said from beginning on, from the first moment we designed it. Guys, there's no way you design anything that we can not sell at 20. And this is now the you must follow this order. Before people were designing tourbillons, but they didn't care so much what is the end cost price, because everybody was used to pay 100,000, 60,000 for tourbillons. And we said we must be avant-garde, we must be accessible luxury, and we must have perceived value because that's our message. So I don't change my message. This is the message. So we have built, we have constructed the tourbillon in a way that we can sell it for twenty thousand and make the same profit as on a normal carrera. So the the th of course, it has probably hurt some people. But if it has hurt people, that is because those people were not at their right place. It hasn't hurt Patrick Philippe, it hasn't hurt AP, it has hurt even not Hublo. We have not seen that we were selling one tourbillon less because Targoyo is making a two bill. So you see, it was right for Tag Hoyer to do it. It hasn't hurt the normal big brands. It has maybe brought illusions in the eyes of certain customers or collectors who believe that the tourbillon is the ultimate masterpiece. But you can ask your watchmaker. It's not true. The ultimate masterpiece is the mini turpita, and below the mini-trepita is the chronograph split second, which is a hell of a damn thing to build. And then eventually the perpetual calendar. And then I would put turbio. So in my hierarchy, and I'm not a watchmaker, you can discuss, but what is never to be discussed is minute repeater is the most important difficult. Second most important difficult is the chrono split, and then people say tobion, I say uh perpetual, and then I put turbion |
| Unknown | . All right, we're over, but we're gonna keep going. So make sure I get it. Are there any questions? Okay, go ahead. Thank you, sir. Mr. Vivet, I was fortunate to buy a few of your watches in auctions in the past. So my question is around collectors. Do you still collect watches and do you get exc |
| Unknown | ited about any new watch that you buy? I still buy. Yes. I have sold uh certain okay. When you collect, you sometimes buy what you don't need, which is the beauty of collection. That's the real beauty. You buy what you don't need. And what you don't need intellectually in the collection. But after a certain period, you realize that there are elements in the collection of your wine or your watches or your cars that you don't need. Because in the enthusiasm of the beginning you have board, board, board, and then slowly, slowly you uh get you concentrate on the essence. And I have sold a few pieces that were not among the most important, or that had not a real role to play in my collection. Now I still have pleasure in buying, I still have pleasure in looking at my collection, and I have I have even more pleasure than ever because my youngest son has a real passion for my collection. And because this young man, 18 years old, he has a real, real passion. I have asked uh Mr. Stern on uh four watches that I have bought, which were unique pieces, to put the name of my son and, to engrave it in the watch, and to put the certificate of origin, the authenticity certificate, to put it under the name of Pierre Bivert, not my name. And this has uh they have accepted to do that at Patek, and that has given me an enormous uh emotion. And recently we looked at the collection and suddenly Pierre said, Ah Papa, there's my name. So I still have this uh pleasure and the respect and the beauty to own uh uh to own to have my collection. But the collection has been reduced to the most important pieces |
| Unknown | . Question in the back at all? I have a question. You've mentioned um a couple times, Philippe Cern. I was going to ask you, look, you're a hero to many. Who is your hero in the Swiss watch industry? Do you have someone who you |
| Unknown | I have I have heroes that are now dead because I am also a little bit old. My first hero is Gerald Genta. Gerald Genta, I worked with him in 1974. And I worked with him till 1982. And then I worked again with him in 2005. And Gerald Genta in 1979, we were traveling to Italy looking for a supplier of gold bracelets called Fontana in Sesto Calende and we were on the train next to the lake and this is the lake Lake Guarda Gul uh uh lake, and there's a small island or a few islands in the middle. And we are and I said to him, Mr. Genta, I was telling him Mr. Genta in those days. I was a little boy, a little kid, I was 30 years old. I said, Mr. Genta, do you think I can uh put yellow, um blue, and green on the dial? I have a request from a customer who wants to have green and blue. Do you think those colors are matching? And Gerald Janta said, Mr. Beaver, what a stupid question. You know, he was very expressive, he was a little bit Italian. Uh with the moustache. He was a little bit like Salvador Dali. And uh what the stupid question. I said, uh sorry, Mr. Jenta, what what is stupid? Stupid that you ask me. How can I know that. I said, okay, but who who who can who can give me answer? He said, there's only one who can answer you. This is the creator or God. I said, okay, I am a Catholic but I have not been to church for many years now. I don't know how to talk to God. And he said, but you don't need to talk to God. God is talking to you. Look out of the window. And I look out of the window, we are in the train. And what do you see? I said the lake and an island. Okay, the lake is is blue. Yes, because it was very nice sunny day. The lake was blue, and the island was green. And I said, blue and green. He said, you see, that is the answer. Not me. I cannot answer. God gave you now the answer. And God is uh the creator, is the one who made planet Earth. From now on, you will ask him, never again to me. But I can now tell you that in the market for the moment this will not sell |
| Unknown | . Let's keep going. One one more. A few more. Yes sir |
| Unknown | . As um as someone who's evolved the watch um industry over the last few decades, how do you predict the watch industry will be different in slate, let's say, 20 years from now compared to where it is now |
| Unknown | ? I believe that in 20 years, probably the Swiss watch industry might have doubled their turnover. Which means, okay, in 20 years, double is okay. If the stock market doubles in 20 years, maybe people might think it's not enough. But for an industry to double in 20 years or 25 years, I think it's not bad. Why do I think we will double in 25 years or 20 or 30. Because more and more we will need to connect to eternity. We are every day connected to what becomes obsolete. Everything gets obsolete. Because everything that we are surrounded with comes from technology. And technology goes into the future by killing the past. I saw in Mexico a few weeks ago, I saw the first phone where I saw it, I was there. The guy uh made a selfie with me, video, selfie. And then he said, OK, we have made the selfie. Mr. Beaver, let's see the video of the selfie we just did. He pushed. No. And I see on the phone three dimensions. No glasses, nothing. I saw three dimensions. I said, but that's incredible. He said, yes, this is my company. We have a startup and we will do billions because this technology we are now we are ready, we're gonna sell it, etc. It means the day every phone is in 3D, who will buy a phone that we have today? So technology kills the past in order to go to the future, while art goes to the future by connecting to eternity. And we, how many engines, how many things you are surrounded with that you can say in 50 years, those will still be there and they will be useful. There aren't any. It's finished even cars today because with all the chips that are in the cars in 20 30 50 years people will not be able to repair because when the chips microchips doesn't exist it's finished. So I believe we will need to come back to something that keeps us connected to the eternity. And this is what connects us the most: love and art. And watches made in a certain way are synonymous of art. I say the watchmaking art. Of course, in a quartz watch, I'm sorry for those who wear quartz, who love quartz, quartz is not an art, it's a technology. While a tourbillon or a a split second or a nice three hands automatic watch is a piece of art and it will work in fifty years, in 100 years. So I believe as more we go into technology, the more people, because we are human beings, we need to be connected to love and to art and to eternity. And one way to connect is through a watch. So I believe the watchmaking art, the Swiss watchmaking art, will double the turnover in 25 or 30 years. |
| Unknown | Alright, we're gonna keep rolling then as long as there are questions. Are there other questions? Yes. Thank you. Uh this weekend we've heard a lot of people talk about the emotional conne |
| Unknown | ctions they have with watches. So is there a certain watch that you have a particular like sentimental value in |
| Unknown | ? Yes, I have. One is the I have a Nautilus from 1976, and I have a big emotion because when Natalie came out in 1976 at AP, I was working for AP at that time, we got very angry and we said they copy us. Of course, they didn't copy, but they copied the spirit. The spirit of Nautilus is the name of a boat, Royal Oak is the name of a boat, boats were in steel. In those days, luxury watches were very didn't exist in still. Um, and both were meant uh for the world of Yotin. And this Nautilus, I said, wow, wow, we were always against it. And one day I had the chance to buy it, and buying made me good, you know. And I said to Mr. Philip Stern, I said, you know, I was so happy to buy this Nautilus. Uh because it remembers me all the fighting I had to do against the watch and now I buy the watch. So questions? But that's just one. I have many emotions in uh uh other stories like that |
| Unknown | . Okay, question in the back. Hey how's it going? Uh in the mid 2000s when Hayek decided that most brands needed to make their own movements. A lot of companies struggled with that, and a lot of companies had to raise their prices to do so. A lot of companies made their own manufacturers. And what happened in the last decade, the prices have skyrocketed. They're more than double than like what we remember 15 years ago. My question to you is, did that I understood why he did it, |
| Unknown | because he said that he need he didn't needed to do it for the ingenuity for Switzerland to be original and stop relying on him for movements, |
| Unknown | but that eventually kind of rested on the backs of the consumer. Did that help the watch industry? Or |
| Unknown | did it hurt us? So the price increase you are referring to is just uh what we forget in this uh theory of prices is the dollar. Uh the Swiss franc is has become so strong when I started okay that's long time ago in nineteen seventy four one US dollar you could get 4.75 Swiss francs, nearly five. Now, for one dollar, you get this morning 99 cents. So as we are produced, and that's just for the dollar, it's even worse for the Italian lira, which doesn't exist anymore. But uh so So you can imagine the when the dollar has weakened so much versus the Swiss franc, what happened to other currencies? It's even worse. So the the uh that is why that is one reason why watches have increased their prices as we produce in Swiss francs as we pay in Swiss francs uh the salaries are Swiss salaries, uh, of course, that gives us an uh an important price increase just because of the currency. Now, to come back to your question, the fact that Mr. Hayek decided not to deliver his knowledge to everybody, I was a supporter of this. I said to him several times. When are we going to stop delivering our competition with our own weapons? If you would sell today the best weapons of the US Army to your friends from Russia. I mean, the people would say, are you crazy, you Americans? How can you sell your best weapons to the Chinese or to the Russians. You don't sell to others what is making your own strong. And I remember, and I'm a friend of Teddy Schneider, the owner, former former owner of Brightly. He was buying from us movements, chronograph movements, and we were trying to sell chronograph watches from Omega. I relaunched the Speedmaster in 1992. And I had enormous difficulties because the retailers were telling us: no, no, from Omega, I don't want the chronograph. I buy chronograph from Brightley. Fucking shit. It's my it's my movement. It's my movement. So so I am now punished. I cannot sell Omega chronograph because, we have sold to Brightling chronograph and he is taking the market. So I was always in favor. I said to Mr. Hayek, one day it's good that you stop delivering to competition. What is making our own strengths? Finally, he did it. And now the next question you ask: was that right or wrong? I think it was right because it gave more credibility to the brands. And when the brand has its own movements, it gives authenticity, it gives credibility. If Hayek would have delivered me to Blanc to Hublow, the chronograph which I wanted, 1185 from Frederick Piget. I made an order. I said, Mr. Hayek, please deliver me. And he said, No. Okay. The 1185 Piget, the best chronograph movement in the world, in my opinion. Why? Because it's ultra slim. And number two, it's the only chronograph in the world where you have the best amplitude when the chronograph is working. On all the other chronograph you they and they you can look uh i in the instruction booklets, which I have also from Patek from others, you must stop your chronograph once you have finished to action it, because if you let it run, you lose amplitude and the accuracy is not the same. While on the 1185, because I asked for it, because I always have my chronograph working, because I like the movement, I like to see it working. If it stops, you don't know if you watch working or not. So we built the 1185 in order that when it's functioning, then you have the best accuracy. So it's a fantastic movement. I think uh El Primero and 1185, wow, are references. But Mr. Hayek didn't want to deliver it to me. So because he didn't want to deliver, Hublow built a manufacture. Probably if I would have got as many 1185 from Pigay as I wanted, I would have used them, I would have bought them, I would have had the same success in quantities that I sell, but I would not have a manufacture and I would not produce 15,000 chronographs myself. So the effect was positive, I believe, although there was some pain in the beginning, of course. There was pain in the beginning, but at the end, I think it was profitable for the industry |
| Unknown | . Let's have another one or two, and then we'll stop. Okay, gentlemen in the middle. Because I know you want to meet John Claude as well, so we'll stop and give you time for that after uh the after the panel. Mr. Beverard, I was just wondering what brands you have the most respect for. You mentioned Thierry Stern, you mentioned uh you know we referred to a number of brands, but from a strategy point of view from a product point of view what are your favorite brands right now and in particular I'm curious uh what your view is uh with regards to Rolex who seems to have a strategy very different from that of Hubelot and perhaps Omega as well in terms |
| Unknown | of not producing endless series of limited edition produc |
| Unknown | ts. You know, I have five kids. Which one do I love the most? It's very difficult to answer. I love them all, but they are different. And among them there are two girls and three boys. And I love them all the same, but differently. And I swear this is a good answer for my watchers. I love many brands, but for different reasons. So just to mention the brands that are coming now to my spirit, you mentioned it. I love Rolex. Sorry if you think this is wrong, but I love Rolex. And I think they do a great job. And I believe that thanks to Rolex, many retailers can survive. And many retailers can buy exotic or small brands that are not selling because they do the turnover with Rolex, they do the money with Rolex, and then they can devote some money for brands that are not selling so well. Uh so I have a lot of admiration for Rolex. I have a lot of admiration for the other brand which is next to Rolex is Patek. Because I believe Patek is the history of watchmaking. They have done so much contribution to the development of the in of the watchmaking art, so much that they could stop uh uh uh uh developing, they could stop producing, they would still for the next 50 years be the number one, because their contribution in the past is enormous. I have a lot of uh uh uh admiration also from Omega. Omega is when you look at the history, it's a fantastic brand. And I went several times to the cemetery of Omega. What these guys tell you, there are so many people that have worked for Omega, when you hear at the cemetery, what they tell you, it's a fantastic brand. I have a lot of admiration, of course, for my, I wanted to say my own, for Hublow, which is my biggest achievement in my professional life. This is, you know, somebody asked me what is the watch you would like to wear when you die? I said, that one. The one I have now. It's a bigger bang, all black in ceramic uh tourbillon chronograph from two thousand five and it's a prototype. With that watch, if I would not have kids, I would want to be buried with the watch on the wrist. But as I have children, it would be it's it's a pity that I go under the earth. So I would take it off before I die and say come on I I I leave it. Now I can die. I have a lot of admiration for Hubleau. Recently I discovered Zenit. Zenit was my biggest doubt in my history. I thought I would never find a way to restore Zenith. It was so difficult, and Zenith had done so many trials, and then they were a prisoner of El Primero. So I said, I was really doubting that I could find which message to give to the brand. I found it finally. I found a great CEO, Julien Tornard, an incredible guy, phenomenal guy. You know, Jean-Fred Dufour from Rolex, fantastic man, Ricardo Guadalupe, fantastic guy, Julian Tornard. So voila, I uh now when when suddenly a small brand comes out with something fantastic like uh like Groebel and Force, I have admiration for Gruebel and Force because they are producing a museum quality. To produce museum quality is not easy. And so you see, I have, I am not an Ayatollah. I am very open to, yeah, I have even admiration for I mean even I have also admiration for swatch. I bought the Mickey Mickey Mouse watch uh from Damien Damian Hurst. I bought the watch. Uh I put an inscription to get one of the first ones. So you see I I I love watches. So I have not a particular uh love. I I love them all for what they are. And yeah, that's it. One |
| Unknown | more all right uh uh i will end with this if you were the king of the watch industry and you by diktat could fix change improve anything that's out there now, anything in the circuit, what would it |
| Unknown | be? We have to okay. In nineteen eighty2, if I remember well, came out the first swatch. Watch. 82 or 81, I don't remember. In 1982, the first swatch came out was sold. What was the importance of swatch in 2000 or in 19 uh in the nineteen nineties two t000 till 2010, even later. What role did they play? And this is a role that people constantly underestimate. The role of swatch was to put a watch on every child from six to sixteen years old. It was the first time in history that boys and girls six, eight, nine, twelve years old had a watch on their wrist. It had never happened before because of the price and because of the whole structure. Thanks to this plastic watch. Thanks to $50 each watch. Thanks to the colors. Thanks to the marketing. Thanks to the joy of life of life. Thanks to the fact that you could wear several. Thanks to the fact that you could match it to your uh uh dress. You have a uh a yellow uh shirt, you put a yellow watch on the wrist. This has brought the people six years old fifteen years old they have become watch conscious before at five years old at eight years old nobody was watch conscious nobody was telling Mama I want the red swatch because I have a I have a red shirt. Never this happened before. And when the kids become watch conscious when they are six, eight, nine, twelve, fifteen, eighteen years old. What happens later? Later they stay, they will keep watch conscious. And later they will buy another watch. So swatch has opened the market to all this generation. And who is doing this today? Who is doing this role? I am asking that somebody replaces Swatch in that role. Who? I hope Apple. I have been not long now in America. I just went to the hotel for the drink. I saw so many people wearing an Apple Watch that I said to myself, maybe Apple can put a watch on each wrist, and it's always more easy to sell to somebody an expensive watch when he has already worn a watch than when he has never worn a watch. It's the same for shoes. It's more easy to sell a berlutti pair of shoes to somebody that had Nike shoes or any sneaker on the wrist, on the foot, than when he was barefoot. It's always more difficult to sell a pair of leather shoes to somebody that's never worn shoes. But if somebody has already worn shoes but never in leather, one day he might want a leather pair of shoes. So swatch has played an incredible role in bringing the watch conscious to a new generation that became that uh grew up to 20 years old, 30 years old, 40 years old. And that has been one of the reasons, only one of the reasons why we had this incredible development of this industry in the 90s and 2000 and 2010, because we have built the youth, the young people. Now, do we do the same with the millenniums? When I see millenniums, when I ask millenniums, they tell me maybe it's wrong. I don't have enough uh uh the my uh advisory board is only six millenniums. But these six millenniums, they never stopped telling me we don't want to wear an Apple Watch. Not Apple, we don't want to wear a connected watch. And we saw with Tag Hoya, people who buy the Tagoya connected watch are not the young people. There are people 40, 45 years old. So who is trying to bring the watch conscious in the head of the millenniums? And that is the big challenge we have. And if I had one advice to give, let's try to educate the young, the new generation, so that they become ready to buy naturally when they are 30 years old, or when they get married, or when they get fiancé. And you know, in the past, people were giving watches to for good luck. I always say to people who buy a watch from me, I say, I have one wish. Now that you bought the watch, I wish this watch, when you wear it on your wrist, that the watch is giving you love, happiness, and success. Because that's why we made this watch. We made this watch by hand, we have put so much passion in it, we have put so much love in it, that all this passion, all this love, when you wear it on your wrist, is going to your blood. And that is the message. That's why you buy it. And then people say, uh, I didn't know that I buy it for that reason. I said, but that's the beauty. Now you know it. That's the real reason. And that is why your wife has offered you the watch. Because that's her belief. And then she says yes, yes, yes. So we have to educate the millenniums. If we don't educate the millions, we are we will be missing a big chunk uh a big part of the market of the future. Jean-Claude Beaver, thank you for coming so far. Celebrate with us |
| Unknown | . Thank you. Thank you |
| Unknown | . This week's episode was recorded live in New York City at the Hodinki 10th anniversary weekend in front of a live standing room only audience. Our producer and editor is Grayson Korhonen. Please remember to subscribe and rate the show, it really does make a difference. Thank you all for listening, and we'll see you next year. |