Is Zenith turning into a brand like Hublot?

Photo by: A timely prespective

Another week, another article.

This week we had a major release regarding two aspects, complications and models.

I’m talking about the release of the Zenith Defy Lab with a new complication that conjugates the balance wheel, balance spring and lever.

This complication allows the Defy Lab to have a astonishing rate of 108.000 vph, making it the most precise wrist watch at the moment.

But let’s talk design.

Throughout this past 7 days I’ve seen many people talking about how Zenith has became a younger sibling of Hublot, mainly in terms of design.

Is this true?

I don’t think so.

In this specific model, the Defy Lab, uses a case design that has almost 50 years ( exists since the 70’s).

Hublot was only founded in 1980.

The Defy models (previously named “Defi”) always held an intriguing and innovative design in my opinion. From case shapes to bezels and dials the Defy models always had a differentiative aspect that made this model's look modern or sometimes with futuristic lines of design.

I would rather go for a Zenith El Primero G381, a model recently introduced to me by the founder of Watches&Art. And for that I thank you dear friend, because it’s now my favorite Zenith!

So what might differentiate Zenith from Hublot, on present times?

Zenith in my opinion holds a much more noticeable tradition and heritage,

although it’s now a brand that entrusts celebrities as brand ambassadors.

We already seen a big problem regarding brand banalization with Hublot, a lot of new faces, multiple brand collaborations, and even more limited editions…

A luxury brand must retain its exclusivity, its respect for tradition, but it looks like Hublot has open it’s rules to innovation, but i'm not totally sure if it's a good innovation or the opposite.

Brands DNA is an aspect that walks in a very thin line, a line that separates a curated image from a popular and un-personal image targeted for the common public.

Do we want this in a brand like Hublot? Or even Zenith? Both brands with a extremely rich history?

If you analyze Zenith monthly web stats you can verificate that although it's way below Hublot, on general popularity, Zenith shows a much more well defined target group, this increases the percentage of interest on this defined target groups.

Another aspect very easy to spot when comparing both of the analysis is that Hublot has an extremely big amount of website visitors coming from pages like Juventus, ads placed on popular world wide web websites and the list goes on.

So we can now start to realize that Hublots target group is quite big.

What I’m trying to explain is that, by increasing the target group, brands have to change the way they act and speak to adapt to their new targeted audience.

And sometimes this changes when brands put too much effort on adapting.

They (brands) end up losing part of their DNA or even transmitting an abrupt change on the way they talk to their public, and sometimes this leads to loosing some of their older consumers/clients because they start to loose their relation and identification with the brand.

Is Zenith going in the same way?

After seeing and reading several interviews of LVMH Watch Department and now Zenith CEO, Jean-Claude Biver it’s obvious that part of what we’ve been seeing from TAG HEUER and Hublot from the past few years is being applied in Zenith.

At least regarding the brand methodologies and processes speed.

The truth is that every time Mr.Biver takes over a brand the brand ends up growing in the time being of just two years.

Let’s talk about Tag Heuer case, a brand that had a forced takeover in 2015, after consistently hitting downfalls on venues, has came a long way since Mr.Biver took the charge of CEO.

It’s easy to spot a pattern here, a re-edition to engage with older audiences while at the same time, due to letting the public choose which model TAG would do a re-edition (Monza) creating a bigger engagement with the general audience.

Then they released a model (Connected) that would create necessity and engagement with the currently, harder to reach audience, the millennials.

The next step? Innovation, regarding prices and craftsmanship. How? By releasing the most “affordable” tourbillon and the Modular 45. This last two are two more ways to engage with new audiences while building a stronger relationship with already loyal audiences.

But, can we expect this from Zenith?

Mr. Biver always emphasizes that is essential to maintain the brand personality and DNA as unique.

Although there will be synergies between brands Mr.Biver tells us that he’s well aware of the thin line.

I kinda see this type of strategy as a pattern.

What are we seeing in Zenith is the same innovation strategy used in Tag Heuer.

We can all agree that Zenith is one of the most important brands in history, the El Primero being such an iconic movement, that was used for a long time on most Rolex models.

And I think it was fitted that Zenith would be the “innovator” and creator of this new complication that puts this brand, once again, on the top of most precise mechanisms makers.

A brand that has won more than 2500 prizes in the accuracy and precision department is more than fitted to release this type of innovation, so I think it's a great way of getting Zenith back on people's mouths.

When you analyse Zenith’s stats you can see that most of their direct engagement comes from their shop, a high percentage of their visits takes place on their shop page.

This tells us a lot about how people consume the brand.

The Defy lab is certainly a way to increase the brand awareness, not only due to craftsmanship but with design also. I think we can say that is the most well designed Defy till present days, because we don’t have that absurd (at least for me) modernistic design that screams avant garde in the wrong way. With the new Defy Lab we have a modernistic yet realistic design, a design that is well placed on today's avant garde models from other brands, like the Hublot MP 09 Bi-Axis Tourbillon.

Conclusion

It’s fair to say that Zenith is doing really well for a brand that has been in such a long lasting downfall, but it will be really interesting to see how Zenith communicates.

Because in haute horlogerie the major problem after prices and quantities is the communication factor.

How Zenith will communicate in a way they can actually grow, while maintaining the same brand DNA is a good question to ask ourselves?

We at DAILY.DIOGOCOSTA will certainly wait for news.

My sincere best regards,

Diogo