Not going to be able to write a full post today. It is the last day of SIAR. Show has been great so far, hopefully I’ll be able to write a post on it tomorrow.
In the meantime, check out this really cool video on the making of the effects in Blade Runner. A neat look back to the time before computer generated effects.
http://douglastrumbull.com/key-fx-sequences-blade-runner-hades-landscape#
Yesterday the show here officially opened and the response has already been great. Thomas Mao, founder of The PuristS is here and posted a brief write-up of his time so far.
Four Seasons Mexico City - site of SIAR
Yesterday, at a lunch with the MB&F collectors, I was struck with how pure the love for watches is here. This is a city where you cannot wear a watch outside of your house for security reasons. Think about that for a moment. Approx 3000 visitors will come through this show, there is a great and knowledgeable watch media, I saw at least 5 collectors yesterday wearing MB&F’s, not to mention a Greubel Forsey and loads of other pieces, all in a city where you cannot wear a watch!
To me, this is a unique part of Mexican culture and one that I greatly admire. They travel the world (to places where they luckily can wear their watches!), are extremely well educated and elegant, and have a rich appreciation for art, architecture, etc. They simply love these fantastic objects and do not let the criminals dampen their appreciation.
I think Thomas would agree, that is about as “Purist” as it gets.
Companies have been trying to build tablet computers for years. I remember playing with an Apple Newton nearly 20 years ago and thinking it was the future. Finally, with the tremendous success of the iPad, it looks like tablets are here to stay.
Yesterday, RIM unveiled their Playbook. Luckily for RIM, it looks like a worthy alternative. In addition, multiple Android tablets are soon to hit the market including the Samsung Galaxy.
So who is going to win this war and how will the landscape look in the future? I think eventually content will be ubiquitous across all the platforms. Competition will drive prices way down with subscriptions and subsidies taking them eventually down to $0. For example, perhaps if you buy a 2 year subscription to the Wall Street Journal, they will send you the tablet to read it on. Or maybe Audemars Piguet will give you a branded tablet with their full catalog on it if you buy a watch. Families will have communal tablets that sit on the kitchen table and act as portals to all of the content that they consume.
Of course this is what publishers and brands are dreaming of. For a publisher, it is a format where hopefully people will pay for content. For a brand, right now one of the biggest difficulties is figuring out where and how people are getting information. A ubiquitous device would make it much easier to deliver a brand message.
Personally, I just love that we are still in the infancy of this technology. I for one will be in line to buy each of these new tablets and test them out. I’ll report my findings here.
This week I am in Mexico City for the SIAR. This is one of my favorite cities in the world, but unfortunately I will not get to see much more than the inside of the Four Seasons this trip.
The show officially runs from Tue-Thurs, and the lineup this year is fantastic. Some of the brands showing include:
And for independents you have, among many others:
The show is open to the public. Last year there was something like 3000 visitors. I man the showcases while Max gives interviews. I generally take a pretty active approach – some people stand and wait for guests to ask questions about the watches, I like to get them out of the cases – make people comfortable holding them and talking to me. Standing for 8 hours gets a bit rough, but it really is one of my favorite parts of this job.
Anyway, this week I hope to share some pictures and stories from the show. Keep checking back in!
I got the call yesterday that I have been chosen as a contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
Yes, I’m serious. The taping is in mid-October. I guess I should explain how I got here:
I was working in New York. Actually I was there with our last Performance Art piece, the Only Watch we did with Sage Vaughn. When I am lucky enough to get our new piece to show, I make as many appointments with various press outlets as I can, and then run around NY like a madman for a few days from one office to another showing and explaining the piece. On this day, I happened to finish a bit early and decided to go for a nice walk in Central Park – the long way home to my hotel.
I exited the park North of my hotel and began to walk back down when I saw a line of people outside of a building. Not one to walk past a line of strangers without asking why they are queued, they told me it was a tryout for Who Wants to be a Millionaire.
Now I have to tell you a bit about myself. I know a pretty good amount of random stuff. I’m not sure why. I have a good memory, read a lot of news (now blogs), and used to watch a lot of television. Back when Millionaire was really popular, 10 years ago, I desperately wanted to get on. It seemed like I was guaranteed $250k or more. It was just too easy! Fate must have brought me to this casting.
I got in the line, deciding it was worth being late for my dinner appointment. First there are hundreds of people in a cafeteria type room and you take a written test. Out of those hundred, they called probably 15-20 of our numbers to stay and the rest were dismissed. Then we were given a set of questions for longer written answers, more about ourselves and our personalities. From that, 4-6 of us were chosen to give on-camera interviews with a producer. At the end of my interview, my producer said something to the effect of, “I never say this, but you did great and you will definitely be on the show.” I left pleased. My completely random choice of streets had landed me a shot to win $1m on TV. And then they forgot about me.
That was last July. The network revival of Millionaire came and went. A year came and went. I had written the whole thing off as a fun experience. I guessed that I didn’t quite play to middle America as well as they would want in a contestant. And then, last night I got the call.
Of course, when reality sets in, expectations change. Two days ago I was convinced I would win at least $250k. Now I just hope to win the Fastest Finger, get in the Hot Seat, and not blow it on the first question. I’ll post back on here as soon as I am allowed to let you all know how I do. Although if you see me post about my new Opus 3, you can assume I did well 
“You can’t please all of the people all of the time”
On Tuesday, we released a teaser image of our newest “Performance Art” piece, The JWLRYMACHINE, made in collaboration with Boucheron.
The official release date is Oct 5. The teaser is a fun way for us to let the most interested MB&F fans have some fun and guess what may be coming.
I must say that I was a bit surprised to see people complaining about it on PuristSPro. We obviously respect the opinions of the members there, so Max wrote a nice response.
I have to say, I completely agree with Max. I got super excited when I saw this teaser from URWERK a few days previously. As a real fan of the brand, it was great to get a little extra info and let my mind run before seeing the piece in January.
Oh well, different strokes for different folks. I just can’t quite see what there is to complain about. We are having lots of fun and very proud of our new piece. It is the fourth new release this year (HM2-SV, Frog, HM4). Perhaps we make it look easy, but I can assure you that it takes A LOT of work and passion for what we are doing. I’m glad that those who share our passion have enjoyed all of the new pieces, and hope they too have fun with these early glimpses.
My taste in watches is pretty clear: MB&F, URWERK, DeBethune – this high end, creative approach to watchmaking is what really gets me going. However, there are plenty of nice watches that aren’t shaped like spaceships with six figure price tags. Recently I posted about a Seiko that I like. Eventually I’ll post about the vintage Rolex (yes, Rolex) that I wear often.
The real question is, with so many watches on the market, how does a collector determine what is GOOD and what is not? For me it comes down to a clarity of purpose.
Why does this company exist? Why does this watch exist? Does it accomplish the goal? Is it the best it can be for what it is?
For my favorite Contemporary Horology brands, the answers are clear – I touched on them here.
However, not all watches have the purpose of “the best no matter the cost”. One of the most common questions I get from non-watch people is, “Are Rolexes good watches?” Let’s look at the Clarity of Purpose test.
If I were to state the mission of a Submariner it would go something like this: “A high quality, robust, great looking, mechanical diver’s watch that will never go out of style, run forever, all at a reasonable cost”
Is it the highest quality watch in the world like many uninformed people think? Of course not. But who has ever met those objectives better than Rolex? The Submariner is unquestionably one of the great watches of all time.
There are tons of great watches in the world. From Casio G-Shocks to Patek Philippe Minute Repeaters, the question is not of price or quality, but is the watch clear in its concept and does it deliver the quality intended at the targeted price?
If a watch is similar to many others on the market – is it the best of its group? For example, of all the high end chronographs, which is the best? For me, the Lange Datograph.
If the watch is creative and unique – is it done tastefully, with high quality, and does it represent a truly creative point of view or is it just the work of a marketer trying to capitalize on a trend? I hope that those reading this blog can tell the difference.
Unfortunately, there are tons of watches created that I look at and think, “Why does that exist?” ”What does that watch add to the world of horology?” With a basic education and keeping in mind the clarity of purpose test, hopefully true collectors will continue to focus on the true gems of our industry.
The ability for internet content to “go viral” is one of the most powerful marketing tools ever. Indeed it is like a marketing atomic bomb.
While it is difficult to achieve a truly viral effect with a watch that appeals to such a small percentage of people, we do see network effects with our releases. For example, we create our releases and time their distribution keeping in mind how they will go from one source to another in order to maximize their impact. For example, HM4 made it onto sites like Engadget, CrunchGear, and The Coolist creating network effects well outside of the usual watch media.
For Tech Tuesday, I thought we’d look at a band that has become truly expert in creating viral videos: OK Go. They have come out of nowhere and cemented themselves as one of the most popular groups in the world on the strength of their videos.
Everyone loves a Rube Goldberg machine!
And here is their latest, released yesterday:
What are the key elements that make these videos work? They are both very creative, both extremely well done, and both done with a great sense of humor – all difficult to achieve and balance. For a brand, it is a large investment and a big risk to create something like this, but imagine the fun when it gets traction and the views start growing exponentially!
“Are you still doing the watch thing?”
After a week of traveling, countless meetings, and presentations at two shows for hundreds of people, my brain was starting to get overloaded with watches. On Friday I took the train from Philadelphia to Baltimore to visit my family. The question above was the one I fielded the most often from my family members who I speak to at most once a year.
This whole world of expensive watches is so unreal to most people. We are in our little bubbles – our websites, forums, blogs, stores, shows – where it seems as if everything revolves around watches. For me, getting reminded that we are so far off the general public’s radar screen is a very powerful thing. For one, it highlights the interesting challenge of this job: a very tiny percentage of our target market has any knowledge that this world exists, let alone familiarity with our brand. From a marketing perspective, this is a much more fun challenge than convincing people to buy Coke rather than Pepsi.
Perhaps even more importantly, the chance to explain our niche world to neophytes forces us to focus on the things that really matter. Why would a watch be so expensive? What are the people like who make these things? What sorts of people buy these things? These are all important questions for ANYONE in this industry to think about. The ability to explain the answers in a way that makes sense for anyone shows a basic mastery that is important – why are we here?
I’d love to hear your stories of some reactions when people hear that you are in this industry or interested in haute horlogerie. Leave them in the comments!
The WatchTime events in NY and Philadelphia this week were great. Again, to be able to give collectors an opportunity to hold and try on the pieces is something really special for us.
Surprises:
- The amount of people who knew of MB&F and have seen our pieces in magazines or on the internet. I know our visibility has increased, but I am pleasantly surprised that people are actually READING the articles and our story is resonating.
- Obviously HM4 was a huge fan favorite. I was a bit surprised that the other major fan favorite was the HM2-CTi (Ceramic and Titanium).
- I knew NY would have a good watch atmosphere, but Philadelphia also has a very well educated base of collectors.
Thanks to Jeff Kingston, WatchTime Magazine, and Peter Speake-Marin with whom it was a pleasure to share a table.
Next stop is SIAR in Mexico City. If any of you are reading from Mexico, I look forward to seeing you there!