Watch Rewards Strike a Pose

Incentive: Merchandise

Watch Rewards Strike a Pose
January 30, 2009
The watch industry is more about fashion than time these days, and diamonds and big, chunky chronographs are in

By Leo Jakobson

In the last three or four months, the most surprising thing that has happened in the watch market is…nothing much.

"My Ebel and high-end Movado sales have not been affected," says Joe Zanone, senior vice president of Movado, referring to his more pricey Swiss watch lines, which run upwards of several thousand dollars. "People still want to use them in programs," he adds, admitting that has come as a bit of a surprise to him.

"It's my upper moderate line, $700-$1,200 watches, where sales are soft," he says. "The high end, for a 25- to 35-year service award, [or for] the top salespeople, you still have to find a way to reward them. Overall, I'm flat to last year and flat is the new up. I'm happy with that."

Lisa Tennant, watch buyer for Chicago- based fulfillment specialist Hinda Incentives, essentially agrees, adding that incentive program buyers and their redeemers are not showing any sign of turning away from the recent trend of showy, bejeweled watches. "I thought the economy would have a major impact, but it is still diamond city out there. There are a lot of diamonds, not just on the face, but on the strap as well."

That is true at all price points, adds Adrienne Forrest, assistant vice president of Bulova-Wittnauer. "The trend is diamonds, crystals, precious stones," she says, "whether it's high-priced watches, where you'll see diamond-encrusted case and dials, or in the lower price points, where we have Swarovski crystals accenting the product."

Zanone adds that showy faces are in vogue, pointing to watch dials made with materials such as mother-of-pearl.

Another current trend that surprises Tennant is the growing popularity of rose gold as a material for men's watches. While long popular with women, the darker rose gold hasn't been seen in men's lines often, she says.

Beyond the bling, "For men, in particular, mechanical watches are back in vogue," Forrest says. "That's true in particular with some of the high-priced Swiss watches, but at Bulova we are lucky. One of our newest watches, the BVA Series, is a line of mechanical watches in the $450 average price point, which is phenomenal." Tennant adds that Movado's ESQ line, which was early to the mechanical watch segment, is doing well for Hinda, too.

Noting that watches are less timepieces than fashion accessories these days, Tennant says that another current trend is toward large and bulky sports watches—"Chronographs, diver's watches, eco-drive [self-winding] watches, and large faces are in for women as well as men," she says. Citizen is doing well in the thirty- to fortysomething market, she adds, and Swiss Army is popular among people in their twenties and thirties. Zanone says much the same thing, noting that his opening price point watches, like Lacoste and Tommy Hilfiger, are also doing very well.

A new brand that Tennant recently added to Hinda's collection that is popular right now is Michele watches for women, which have large faces that often combine sports features like chronograph dials with plenty of diamonds, and a line of exotic leather straps—alligator, python, lizard—in bright, primary colors. Sporty straps made of rubber, plastic and even ceramics are gaining traction in the industry.

Many of the same trends are affecting clocks, too. "From the middle to end of this year, we're seeing very strong, masculine designs," Tennant says. "Squares, modern, clean lines. Even grandfather clocks are more square, have open works," which parallels the trend toward mechanical watches.

And just as watches are becoming fashion accessories in a society where everyone has a cell phone or BlackBerry that tells the time, "every room in your house has something electronic that's going to tell the time, so a clock really has become a home accessory piece," Forrest says. "You'll have a mantle clock in your living room that goes along with the décor in that room, or you'll have a picture frame clock on the bookshelf that has a picture of your family. In your office you might have a desk set with a weather station that tells the temperature and the time and holds a Post-it notepad."

Send comments to ljakobson@incentivemag.com.

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