The first party of the year for the watch industry was the Geneva fair. I prefer to call it Geneva fair, as it is much more than the SIHH (Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie, basically the Richemont Group + Richard Mille, Girard-Perregaux, Audemars Piguet, JeanRichard, Parmigiani and Greubel Forsey): there is the WPHH (World Presentation of Haute Horlogerie of the Franck Muller Group – Franck Muller, Rodolphe, Pierre Kunz, Pierre Michel Golay, Backes & Strauss and Cvstos), the GTE (Geneva Time Exhibition, featuring many independant & small brands) and the rest, meaning plenty of brands, disseminated throughout Geneva: Hublot, Bovet, De Bethune, Journe, Laurent Ferrier, Ludovic Ballouard, Tag Heuer, Zenith, Revelation, Urwerk and many others.

Well, after a whole week of immersion in the watch industry, one comes out with mixed feelings: the good ones are all about watches and some about persons and the bad ones are all about persons and some about watches.

The Good Ones:

- watch industry is like music: each year brings its bunch of new hits, new best-sellers and surprises. 2012 is like that: look at Revelation, Ludovic Ballouard, De Bethune, Heritage, Ateliers de Monaco, Milus, Richard Mille… and you will see that there is still room for astonishment in front of such creativity and imagination (not to speak about expertise, as dreams have been translated into working machines);

- creativity is still present nowadays, yes, and more will be shown at the Basel fair: wait to see what Christophe Claret, Ressence, Ulysse Nardin and some others will present and you will be reassured about the good state of our industry in terms of creativity and capacity to produce emotion (meaning create desire to purchase);

- this creativity is, thanks God, not going in the direction of high frequencies nor higher (in theory) precision: the Swiss watch industry did suffer during 15 years (1974 – 1989) when it thought Swiss watches were selling because of their precision and the wake-up call from the market made Swiss brands realize that many others were making and selling much more precise watches at a far lower price. No, creativity goes in two directions: time display and new functions (and mixtures of both). There is a third one, less important since it is only technical and not really emotion builder: new materials.

- this creativity is even more convincing as it is accompanied by an increased attention to movements’ finishes: new brands like Laurent Ferrier, A. Favre & Fils, Romain Gauthier, Revelation, Cyrus, Ateliers de Monaco, Antoine Martin, Ludovic Ballouard… are presenting watches with typical & traditional high-end finishes on their movements; and brands like MB&F, Blancpain, Breguet, Hublot … are presenting new watches with movements’ finishes far better than in the past years.

So we, at TWE, are happy to see what is going to come next and are pushing brands to dare to launch new designs with improved movements and movements’ finishes.

The Bad Ones, now:

- the “Limited Edition” tag: wow. It seems that the whole industry has gone to the same school with the same teacher. Limited edition. The (supposed) key to increased sales, easy sales. Out of the 1,940 types of watches presented in TWE’s guide, 476 are limited editions meaning a quarter of the watch produced are “limited”! Where else do you see that? No limits, these guys have no limits. In fact, some brands do not hesitate to present a “limited edition” that exceeds their total annual production… The result is that some collection watches are far more limited than most limited editions, even inside the same brand.

- the novelty concept: this is the second “turbo booster” to sell a watch (according to the industry’s belief). Take a regular collection piece and present it in white gold, or with a leather strap and you are entitled to name it a “novelty”. You have now a direct access to the columns and pages of the media with the definite tag: novelty! What a shame! How long brands’ managers will continue to play the fool? What do they need to do things correctly? Maybe the first one to use the “no-novelty” concept will win, if it comes with increased quality of the products at correct prices.

- the lack of creativity of the big names: it is not enough to proclaim in any meeting, presentation, website, catalogue that your values are audacity, daring attitude, creativity, innovation, tradition…. you also have to apply them.

- the prices: thanks to TWE’s guide (hum, hum), a brand can see the choice offered by its competitors. When showing during the fair that tool to some brands’ managers, we could see their surprise at looking how expensive their products are compared to other brands. This proves that while some are doing their homework, others (the majority) still think that they can fix the price at their ease. Please, do not forget to deliver according to the public price and compare with what the market offers for that amount of money.

- the lack of vision of most industry’s captains, leading to an excess of production of the watch industry, especially in the high-end segment. How long brands’ CEOs will keep on closing their eyes, ears and brains to the fact that the whole industry cannot keep on producing as much as now without grouping like oil-producing countries have done with the OPEC? It is not enough to see all around the world windows and vaults of grey market retailers full of brand new watches, most of them still wearing their protective stickers, being sold with huge discounts. No, it is not enough. What do they need to sit all together and agree a true reduction of production? The survival of the industry might depend on this. And do not believe that newcomers from China, India, Brasil… will continue to absorb increased quantities of watches sold at increased prices, otherwise the wake-up call might be quite tough.

Maybe the market will issue a toll for the players that do not respect the common sense rules.

As a conclusion, it is not an “end-of-an-era” feeling that we have at TWE because of the Maya calendar. Things have to change and changes that are not done based on anticipation happen with more strength and provoke more casualties than a move based on consensus. It is of paramount importance for the industry.

We hope at TWE that the industry will be able to restore the factors that made it so successful: rarity, expertise, quality, authenticity and reluctance to sit back and relax while looking at sales’ reports. Go back to basics. Gentlemen, open your eyes and look out, now!

PS: the Maya calendar does not announce the end of the world, by the way, but rather the end of an era and the upcoming of a new one, with new values and energy.