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Get ‘Em Early: A Marketing Plan For Raising Watch Lovers

admin — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 07:01:44 +0000

While at Baselworld 2012, I had an interesting idea. It wasn’t totally unique, and I certainly didn’t come up with it originally. I did however stumble upon a solution for a huge problem with the watch industry and a great way to solve it. Something that to my knowledge isn’t really being done with any seriousness today. It has to do with getting more people to wear and want watches, and how to approach a post need-based watch economy.

By “post need-based” I mean that technically speaking, people no longer must wear watches to tell the time. People most certainly still need to know the time, but there are simply other options (perhaps not as convenient) in addition to a wrist watch that will tell you the time. This wasn’t always the case. It used to be that if you wanted to tell the time, you either needed to own a wrist watch, or remain within very close proximity to a clock. And carrying around a grandfather clock in a Radio Flyer wagon behind you wasn’t very practical. Essentially, everyone needed a watch.

People would get their first watch usually as a gift from their parents or relatives – more than likely when they were a kid. It would be something basic and cheap, and something they would inevitably break or grow out of. Then it was time for their next watch. The need for a watch and the importance of owning one was implanted in people at a young age in that world. Thenceforth people were watch wearers for life - most of the time. This was the status quo and all watch makers knew it. While luxury watches were just that, you knew that the entire population was going to need your product.

The 1980s was likely the best thing to happen to this system given the influx of cheap and cool watches that did things no previous watches could do before. The watch was cooler than ever, and people had more options than ever. Then the 1990s came and was just as big a revolution… but in the opposite way. With computers, Walkmans, and mobile phones, people suddenly had other, often more accurate ways to tell the time. A wrist watch started to move from necessary to optional for a large portion of the population. Parents started to get their kids phones, computers, and audio devices earlier and in larger quantities than watches.

One reason for this was cost. A parent wanting to get their child a good Swiss watch was running out of options. Sure there was Swatch – but that is hardly a way to promote a youngster into being a serious watch lover. With the mechanical watch industry reinventing itself as a luxury lifestyle product, many of the items that parents might have bought for their children 10 or 15 years earlier were simply being priced out of the “I would get it for a 12 year old” segment. That is certainly the truth more than ever today. Buying an Omega or Rolex for a youngster in your life is more expensive than getting them a computer, mobile phone, and audio device – combined.

Parents also stopped wearing as many watches for many of the same reasons. Disposable income went more to gadgets and other emerging electronic items that seemed more important or relevant. With casual Friday turning into casual every day, even the status requirements of wearing a fine timepiece for business purposes started to erode – especially in America. Bill Clinton famously campaigned and served in office as the US President wearing a Timex Triathlon – in order to connect better with the common person. His choice of wearing the inexpensive plastic digital sports watch was especially ironic because Clinton himself is and was a major high-end watch collector. Even politics were marginalizing the perceived excess of traditional watches now seen as fodder for the wealthy, and akin to status symbols like clothing from Hermes, Gucci, and Dolce & Gabbana. It just started seeming less and less like something to buy for a kid.

In an economy based on disposable goods, the idea of buying an expensive watch meant to last for many years almost seems foreign. Even with electronics, we are nurtured to upgrade each few years – because let’s face it, we are personally limited by technological obsolescence when it comes to productivity and entertainment. One can make an argument that buying such a non-fungible item for children is an important lesson in caring for one’s property and learning the responsibility of long-term ownership, but I digress.

I mention all this to help explain some of the main reasons why people today are no longer wearing watches quite as much. They didn’t do it as kids, and the need or desire for a watch on their wrist isn’t built into their personality or perpetuated as much by society. Seeing people wear watches on TV is one thing, but what is really missing is personal and community experience.

So the watch industry is in a bit of a bind – especially in places like the United States where wrist watch wearing isn’t as much a part of the culture as it is in Asia and to a large degree, Europe. The bind is that the “interested watch population” is smaller than it should be, media doesn’t really discuss it very well, and young people just aren’t as interested in watches as they could be. I say this with a straight face suggesting that young people really would like watches if they were more familiar with them. This isn’t a plea for mass social manipulation to get people wanting and buying something they otherwise wouldn’t want. This is about exposure and education in regards to something genuinely satisfying (of course I would say that).

The goal is to get young people wearing more watches and to grow up with a bit of watch culture. I suggest a two pronged approach to achieving this. One prong is product related, and the other is marketing related. Let’s talk about marketing first.

Kids aren’t going to buy watches for themselves. They don’t really buy anything for themselves and don’t really have any money. What they do ask for is junk food and toys – that they see on TV. Also the stuff their friends have and show off. How do kids get stuff? Adults. The parents and relatives of children need to buy them watches. These purchases will mostly take the form of gifts. Adults need to buy watches for the kids who are close to them. Why would they do this? Well adults buy things for kids all the time, in the form of gifts, coming-of-age tokens, or simply to show love. What the watch industry needs to do is remind adults that watches are a good option for each of these occasions.

This can be done through a series of marketing campaigns, ideally becoming a trend among many brands. The main message should be a suggestion for parents and adults to choose a watch (perhaps their watch) when considering what gift to get a kid. This is happening a bit right now, but not in a very direct way, and not nearly enough.

A number of watch brands are marketing their products to teenagers and young adults. The problem is that in many instances they are too late and the message is wrong. They are missing the younger more formative years of a person’s life, and campaigns are too focused on asking a teenager to buy a several hundred dollar watch personally, rather than focus on suggesting to an older person to buy a watch that might appeal to a younger person. There is a big difference in these approaches. Such campaigns need to appeal to slightly older people, and frame the message more like “this is a cool watch that a teenager would like.”

The second marketing message is the more complex argument of why an adult should buy a watch as a gift for a kid. You could argue that this has been done before, but I again suggest the mark has been missed much of the time. The most famous example is Patek Philippe’s long standing “…hand down to the next generation…” series of ads. If you are aware of these ads you know what I am talking about. Rather than help encourage older people to buy watches for kids, the ads are actually a value proposition about the long-term emotional and investment properties of a Patek Philippe watch. If anything, the message is “buy a Patek Philippe watch for yourself now. Your child that respects you will see it, and one day when you die or upgrade, they will get it and enjoy knowing you owned and wore it.” Patek Philippe grazes the right concept, but altogether does something different with those particular marketing campaigns.

Frederique Constant, a few years ago, came out with a sub $1,000 range of watches aimed for young boys and girls. They were to be easily engraved with personal messages on the casebacks, and were intended to be ideal gifts for special occasions such as Bar Mitzvahs or graduations. The only problem is that I never really saw any significant ad campaign or efforts around it. It was a good idea with what seemed like an anemic consumer education campaign.

What the entire watch industry needs to do – especially in America – is get the message out there to adults that watches make a nice, traditional, fun, fashionable, and classy gift for the young. The message will (and should) come in a 100 different ways from 100 different sources. If there is success, then new watch wearers will be born.

The second element of this larger idea is related to product. If people have this new found idea to buy watches for kids, then they need to have a good idea of what to buy. It is true that many watches out there right now would be good for kids, but I really think they either needed to be touted as such, or at least packaged as such. Most kid's watches should be smaller than those for full-grown adults, less expensive, but at the same time items that assert similar values. If you want to buy clothes or toys for a kid, you know where to go. If you want to buy a watch, you are much more on your own. The industry needs to package the concept much better. This means new ranges of watches for kids or repackaging existing products for kids. Don’t make the consumer work too hard to find the right item. Give them easy choices that range from fun to formal, sporty to silly. And make them more mainstream. Brands like Swatch are an obvious choice to start all this.

It is true that some of what I am suggesting is or has been happening on the product side. There are kid's watches, plenty of them. But do enough of them properly serve as good “gateway watches,” helping a kid step up from watch to watch until they are adults? I am just not sure.

If watch brands agree that getting people to wear watches at an early age is a good idea then it is likely wise to start implementing many of these suggestions. The outcome in 5-20 years is a population that will be more aware of watches, buys more watches, and is more interested in nice watches. It should also have the benefit of raising people that wear watches longer. Perhaps then I will have more to talk about with regular folks.

Written by Mr. Ariel Adams - aBlogtoRead.com, trusted independent watch media.

Watch Case Materials Explained: Ceramic

admin — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 07:08:05 +0000

Contributed by İlker Özcan, who is a professional Materials Engineer and owns a small R&D company (www.ndsgn.com).

In this article on watch case materials we have decided to write about ceramics. Ceramics are possibly the least understood of the materials used in watches. Many watchmakers are nowadays using ceramics for their watch cases – which gained popularity with Rado. Now Chanel, Hublot, Omega, IWC, and many others produce watches with ceramic cases in full or in part.

Materials are generally classified as Metals, Polymers, Ceramics, and Composites. Sometimes foams, etc... are added but these four classes are universally accepted. So ceramics are one of the three main classes, where composites are mixtures of these three.

Ceramics are essentially inorganic solids (organic ones are polymers) that are also not metals. So in addition to what is usually thought as “ceramics”, glass, diamond and graphite are classified as ceramics. The sapphire used as watch crystals is also a ceramic. Engineering wise, ceramics are divided into four sections. Among these “engineering ceramics” are what we will cover today. The rest of the three sections are what we know as ceramics in daily life i.e. tableware, bricks, tiles, etc. Engineering ceramics themselves have many classes and it is not possible for us to cover them all in such an article. Thus we will talk about their general properties and advantages. Unlike earthenware (which is comparatively brittle), engineering ceramics are made of very pure materials. These pure ingredients ensure the needed properties can be produced consistently. Usually the ingredients are oxides, carbides, nitrides etc. Most of which are compounds of metals with oxygen, nitrogen, carbon or others. For instance, Rado states that (http://www.rado.com/files/BXMediaPlusDocument9376file.pdf) they are using zirconium-oxide or titanium carbide for some of their watches. Which are both excellent ceramics.

Engineering ceramics are extremely hard. They are the hardest class of materials known. So scratching a ceramic watch would not be much of a concern. They are usually more than three or four times harder than stainless steel. The high-tech coatings on watches are essentially ceramics. Actually tools made of ceramics are being used to cut metals in mills or lathes. When used properly, they have much longer lives than conventional tools. Related to their hardness, they are good in terms of wear resistance, which is the loss of materials that are in moving contact for long periods of time. This is why rubies are used as bearings in watch movements (21 jewels anyone?). They maintain a smooth surface and low friction for a long time. Thus, thanks to ceramics, mechanical watches can run for years. And their usage on watch cases ensure far less scratches on our beloved timepieces. Hublot has recently developed a ceramic/gold composite, which will hopefully make gold much harder.

Ceramics are also rather light, usually ranging from 2 to 6 g/cc, many of them being around 3 g/cc. They are much lighter than stainless steel (8 g/cc) and titanium (4.5g/cc). They are around the same density as aluminum (2.7 g/cc). This low density together with high hardness makes them very desirable for many aerospace and military applications, such as lightweight layers of armor that break up incoming projectiles or themselves are designed to break up to disperse the energy of a high velocity impact. Thus ceramic watches are very light and somewhat bulletproof too!

Ceramics also have very high strength but with one big defect. That strength only comes under compression. Under compression, they can bear very high loads, strengths ranging 1000 to 4000 MPa. Titanium, that we consider as very strong material, only has 1000 MPa. 4000 MPa is unheard of in any metal. However that’s only in compression. In tension (think flexability) the strength of ceramic falls as much as 15 times, which makes them useless for many applications. Metals on the other hand have very little differences between their tensile and compressive strengths. This ceramic "Achilles Heel" is mainly due to the low ductility and toughness of ceramics. They just break when you hit them hard. If only they had been tougher, they could have been the best materials in the world for almost all applications. This low toughness means you should protect your ceramic watch from impacts, or it can shatter. This is why old stone structures are made with many arches, the arch makes sure the loads are compressive in the nature.

Low toughness is caused exactly by what gives them their high strengths - atomic bonds. Actually atomic bonds are responsible for almost all the properties of all materials. Metals have “metallic bonds”. They are low in strength, but not directional. Thus, a metal atom can bond with other atoms at any angle. This makes them ductile and tough. Ceramics have “covalent” and “ionic” bonds. They are very strong, but directional. (It is actually much more complicated than this, but we are simplifying). Being directional means it is hard to move an atom around another, thus ceramics are not malleable. Composites are mostly a way to solve this problem, to be covered in another article.

Engineers and scientist have worked for years to make ceramics tougher. And one interesting solution is “Zirconia Toughened Alumina” and “Yttria Stabilized Zirconia.” It is a special class of ceramics. When the ceramic is breaking under stress, it microscopically swells at the crack and stops the crack from growing. Thus improving the toughness. Still, their toughness is low with respect to metals. If you had a watch made of such ceramics, they would be much more impact resistant than usual ceramics watches.

Their stiffness is high to very high, which is as we stated in the titanium article, is mostly irrelevant for a watch case, but can be important for movement parts. Recent use of silicon parts in Omega movements are being used owing to their combination of good properties. And, advanced production methods for silicon already exists for very small and precise parts.

One unrelated property of ceramics is their excellent high temperature resistance. Where no metal can function, ceramics retain most of their strength, and thus they are used in jet turbines, brake discs, cutting tools etc. It is completely irrelevant for a watch, but it is such an important property that I had to state it.

Production methods for ceramics are mainly based on sintering from powders. You can think of it as compacting snow to a snowball and eventually to ice with the heat and pressure of your hand. When a similar technique is used for ceramic powders, a part with the desired shape and properties can be obtained. Very high temperatures are needed to consolidate the powder to a near full-density state. This method is also used for metals. However, I am not aware of any watchmaker utilizing this process for metals. Machining is generally very hard to do for most ceramics. However, there are special ceramics made to be rather easily machined. Glass is also considered a ceramic, and there are “glass ceramics” that are first made as a glass, and crystallized to a ceramic. There are also fancy methods like ultrasonic machining to manufacture precise ceramic shapes.

This sintering method starts by shaping the ceramic powders to a watch case (or other shape), applying lots of pressure and heating to very high temperatures that would melt most metals. Thus, a ceramic case is rather expensive due to the purity of materials and the difficulty in sintering them. It is perfectly normal that a ceramic case is more expensive than a steel or even titanium case. However, it will not likely exceed the cost of a gold or platinum case, as the materials used are not that precious. The raw materials to make ceramic parts is cheap, but the process to make them is expensive. Metals are often the other way around, with precious metal materials being expensive, but the process used to machine them being less expensive.

Like titanium, ceramics are very inert, and will not corrode or cause allergic reactions. Actually what makes titanium so inert is the oxide layer on its surface which is essentially a ceramic. If you scratch it, the underlying metal oxidizes immediately and forms a ceramic layer. Same is true for stainless steel. So, you can guess how inert the ceramics themselves are. Thus you can expect a ceramic watch to never ever rust or corrode. Actually, as long as you protect it from impacts, it`s almost indestructible. A ceramic watch is quite desirable as long as you protect it from impacts. Maybe a metal watch with a ceramic bezel is even better. You get scratch resistance for the bezel and toughness from the metal.

(Note: this article was written to generally inform watch lovers about various materials and is very simplified in order to cover a lot of topics briefly.)

No related posts.

PetStraps: Pet Companion Love Lives On… Your Wrist

admin — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 07:03:10 +0000

PetStraps is here to ease the grief of a lost loved one. This revolutionary new concept re-purposes retired pets for eternal life on your wrist. Petting his PetStraps watch strap with a familiar fondness and with a tear running down his face, the company's founder tells us how he started the company after the unfortunate loss of his best rodent friend.

"I thought he was sleeping, but after he didn't respond to me shaking his cage, I knew something was wrong." Three years and eight months just wasn't enough time with Yellow Belly, my gerbil. I had wanted our love to last forever, I didn't know what to do. I called up a taxidermist nearby and brought the body to him. Unfortunately, I hadn't preserved Yellow Belly properly and only the gerbil pelt could be saved. "I used to spend hours brushing his golden orange fur." With eyes full of tears, the PetStraps founder happened to have glanced down at the watch on his wrist. "What was I going to do with a tiny gerbil pelt?" I thought about asking the taxidermist to tan the pelt so I could use it as some type of little pouch for my watch. Then it dawned on me, could this be a watch strap? The taxidermist was hesitant at first. The idea seemed macabre to him. I then proceeded to remind him exactly what it was he did for a living and he sobered up. He said to give him a week, and then come back. I'd have to supply the buckle parts though."

The PetStraps founder explains how after looking at buckles and strap parts he realized that this might be a good business opportunity. People lose beloved pets all the time and aside from a hard stuffed pooch or a bronze bust of your cat - how can you really enjoy your pet after their passing? On your wrist it seemed. That or an expensive commissioned piece of art work. The founder explains his disappointment after spending thousands of dollars on a custom oil painting of Yellow Belly in a general's uniform riding a pony. "It seemed like a good idea at the time, but the result just wasn't regal enough." That was not how I wanted to remember the little guy. He was always less silly than that. Instead, I wanted to attach him to my high-end wrist watch.

"Yellow Belly was the first project, and soon after, more came". I needed to get the word out about PetStraps and get the business going. To promote my business, I spent a lot of time at local veterinary offices. "I would look for people who were crying and assume they had just lost a friend like Yellow Belly." With him on my wrist, I felt like I could do anything. The challenging situation happened after a large man with a beard showed up crying after the vet walked him into the waiting room, patting him on the back. He just sat down like he didn't know where to go so I started to talk with him about my watch. The topic seemed strange to this recently pet-bereaved gentelman but he was probably happy to get his mind off of what had just happened. I learned that his roommate Yappers had died after they had spent more than thirty years together. I didn't realize it until later, but Yappers was a parrot. That was a challenge because I never thought of PetStraps as being made out of anything other than fur. Yappers was the first feathered strap and since then we have made PetStraps with everything from turtle leather to fish scales."

PetStraps uses the highest quality parts and processes to ensure that your beloved PetStrap satisfies you completely. Most straps have an Italian leather or rubber liner on which the dead pet parts are glued. Everything is hand-made and each customer gets a personal guarantee that their passed-on pet gets treated with respect and dignity as they are transformed into wrist wear.

To protect animals, PetStraps has adopted a special policy of requiring owners to submit pictures of them with their pets (while they were still alive). We didn't want people poaching animals just to get a strap made. There was a customer who said they lived in suburban Kansas who wanted a PetStrap made. When I found out the pet was an African elephant I figured there might be a problem. Especially, since it was being shipped from Africa. What really raised a flag was the request to have us engrave a buckle out of "fresh ivory. I just had a bad feeling about that one and we ended up having to ship the elephant back to sub-Saharan Africa. UPS really didn't like us that day."

Each PetStraps strap comes with a well-documented photo album showing pictures of how each individual animal body becomes a useful watch accessory. These albums are titled "Journey into the Afterlife" and begin with the owner's picture of themselves with their pet. "Since this is not an inexpensive memorial, we want people to be fully involved with the process," says the PetStraps founder. It doesn't surprise him when these special albums routinely bring customers to tears and often a loss of appetite. "Healing is healthy," he adds as he nods his head up and down.

How can you enjoy a PetStraps watch strap? The process is fun and easy. If you anticipate the passing of a family member (non-human preferably), PetStraps will arrange for a courier to be on notice 24 hours a day in your area. You'll be given a special number to call after the final moments to arrange for immediate pick up. If the passing is unexpected, you can ship the pet to PetStraps overnight in a foam cooler with ice packs. PetStraps highly recommends placing a notice on the side of the cooler indicating that the "contents do not include human organs." That will certainly prevent delays in delivery. After a few weeks (depending on the strap and pet), you'll get a package in the mail that you'll love more than the new animal you purchased to replace the old one. "Strap Everlasting" is their motto.

Happy April Fools' day 2012.

Written by Mr. Ariel Adams - aBlogtoRead.com, trusted independent watch media.

Watch Case Materials Explained: Titanium

admin — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 07:01:20 +0000

Please welcome Mr. İlker Özcan who will collaborate with aBlogtoRead.com on a few articles discussing materials and processes used in watch cases and other components. Ozcan is a professional Materials Engineer and owns a small R&D company (www.ndsgn.com) - and he loves mechanical watches and loves the exotic materials used in those watches. The purpose of this article series is to enlighten watch lovers about many aspects of watch materials so that everyone can make more educated decisions about the watches they are buying. Now on to Mr. Ozcan:

In this first article I have chosen to start with Titanium. Titanium has recently become very popular in high-end watches, and it is not without reason. For me, titanium is the best overall engineering metal ever! Is it however the best material for a watch case? Let’s take a look...

We engineers measure many properties to evaluate materials. Probably more types of properties than you have heard of if you are not a materials engineer. The most widely known of these properties are: strength, hardness, toughness, lightness and durability.

There are many alloys of titanium - like all engineering metals. The most widely known one is Ti-6Al-4V also known as Grade 5. It is the alloy that we will mostly denote when we say titanium in this article. It is used in very demanding applications such as aircraft components, missiles etc. Grade 2 titanium for instance is considered Commercial Purity and has inferior properties, however still a very good material.

Titanium has been around for the last two centuries, mostly in labs. In the last century methods to extract titanium in industrial amounts were developed. Until recently it has been used exclusively as an aerospace material, and it is slowly penetrating many markets, including watch industry. It is prohibitively expensive for many applications, with a price around 50 times of plain carbon steels. Still its price is much lower than precious metals.

Now strength and toughness is where Titanium excels. Durability is not a scientific term used, we can think of it as the life of a material under cyclic loads, like a turning shaft i.e. fatigue life. Titanium is also great in this aspect, but it is quite irrelevant in a watch case, as a case never fails under fatigue. However it can be important if it is used inside the movement or for a crown or pushers. Strength denotes how much load a material can bear before failing. Titanium has very high strength around 1000 MPa for Grade 5. Five times that of ordinary steels. Even pure titanium is quite strong with Grade 2 being around 350 MPa. However there are alloys of steel that have even more strength than titanium, such as the tool-grade steel that we mentioned above, or some special Aerospace steels (e.g. 300M) have around 2000 MPa strength. Toughness denotes how big an impact a material can absorb before breaking apart. Titanium is really great here, absorbs lots of energy around 20 joules on impact test. However once again there are steel alloys that are better up to 150-200J for Austenitic stainless steels (there are also steels with very poor toughness such as Martensitic steels). Toughness beyond a point is however not important for watch related applications. It is not likely that you will smash you watch to such a degree that its case will break. Well before that would happen the delicate movement would fail.

As you can see steel is very good, but where titanium actually pulls ahead is in terms of lightness (weight). It is circa half the weight of steel for the same volume with a density of 4.5 g/cc vs 7.8 for steels. So for a case that has the same strength, titanium case would be half the weight of a high strength steel case. And actually very high strength steels are almost never used in watches (they are used for aircraft components and tools for industry). Stainless steel is widely used, and it has lower strength (unless it is forged, which is again almost never used in watch industry). So a titanium case would be less than half the weight for the same strength.

Another area where titanium is excellent at is corrosion resistance (e.g. its resistance to rusting). It is so good that it is almost impossible to rust titanium. It is impervious to all acids but nitric acid. And nitric acid is something you do not come nearby in your daily life. It’s corrosion resistance is similar to that of platinum, and in terms of engineering metals only zirconium can beat titanium for corrosion resistance. This corrosion resistance is the key to the hypoallergenic properties of titanium. It is so inert due to the oxide layer that forms on its surface, that it does not react with human body - thus being the material of choice for many medical applications.

There are some areas that titanium is beaten by steels. For instance the stiffness, which denotes how much the material deflects under loads. Steel has higher stiffness, much higher. But I think in a watch case it is not an important property. Maybe, except for diving watches.

The hardness of titanium is lower than some steels, so it scratches easier than most steel. However, titanium is much much harder than gold, platinum and aluminum. Coatings can improve the hardness of titanium as well, and there are many coatings out there that we might cover in another article. Grade 5 titanium has around 35 Rockwell C (Rc) hardness. Steels have a range of hardness from low values all the way up to 55 Rc for hardened carbon steels to 65 Rc for tool steels and even higher for special steels used for knifes (e.g. D-2 tool steel, S30V knife steel). Gold, platinum and aluminum are so soft that they are usually not even shown on the same Hardness scale (there are many hardness scales).

Machining titanium is tricky. Welding, forging, casting and heat treating it are tough. So this trickiness adds to the high price of the titanium. Many properties that makes titanium such a good metal also make it hard to manufacture. With certain techniques that were developed in aerospace industry these hardships can be overcome. This is how we have nice titanium cases at affordable prices these days. However casting and welding processes are still very tricky, and we are unlikely to see a cast titanium case, or welded one at very affordable prices.

Titanium is such a good material that its usage is still increasing in fighter aircraft. For instance the F-22 utilizes more titanium than any western aircraft ever did. Its biggest competitor as a material is Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymers (CFRP) and we will cover that in another article.

This article was written to generally inform people about titanium as a watch case material and has been obviously simplified. A larger discussion of titanium would expand on each of these topics and include many more. Though as watch lovers you hopefully have a new perspective on the popular metal. In conclusion, if you buy a titanium watch, especially one with a good coating, you will be happy with your decision.

Ochs und Junior Watches Interview With Beat Weinmann

phubbard — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 08:06:51 +0000

On Jan 27th, I had the pleasure of talking to Beat Weinmann of ochs und junior, as a follow-up to my review of the selene tinta. Allow me to thank Mr. Weinmann for his time.

PH: One of the things that came up in the comments on my review is the cost of ochs und jr compared to other Swiss brands. Briefly put, why so much for an unpolished titanium case and basic ebauche?

BW: There are several reasons for the costs, mainly due to nonstandard cases and limited production runs. Most case makers have minimum order quantities of 500 or more, which is more than the entire annual production for ochs und junior. We wanted a 2-part, unpolished case with no movement ring, and no manufacturer could make that for us. Having them made by Peter Cantieni allows top quality and small quantities, but of course the per-unit cost is much higher. It also allows much faster turnaround on new ideas and parts, and we felt it was important to work outside of the industry.

Our watch cases are somehow like raw concrete. If that is well done and not over-painted it has as well a bit higher costs than a wall you just put a lot of stuff on to make it look nice. We show directly how it is made! And the work of Peter is perfect!

We make watches without compromise. It's not for the majority, it's for a small niche. As an engineering-based company, we pursue elegant solutions, not polish.

PH: What's different about ochs und jr from other companies?

BW: ochs und junior is a whole environment way of thinking, from the packaging to the watches. You're not paying for advertising or middlemen. We will make around 100 watches in 2012, and we will make a maximum of 300 per year. More than that and we can't control all of the processes: innovation, production, communication, retail, service. We want to have the direct contact to our customers and want to know them - quite different from most other watch companies, even the small ones.

These watches are manufactured in an exclusive small production - with unique developments in it. Who else can develop an annual calendar with just 3 extra parts on top of the movement and with a functional integrated dial? Our moonphase is so different in aesthetics and construction to anything else on the market. If we would mass produce we could certainly lower the prices. But then we get problems to retail them and on the end we have troubles and long service times... We just are not doing any compromises. That is the reason for the maximum number we have made for the company ochs und junior as a target. That is what we can control and manage. Transparency and a honest product is important for us.

PH: What sorts of news and announcements can we share with our readers?

BW: We'll be releasing a new annual calendar movement this year, April or May, for 8,000 CHF. We have orders already, and it's on wrists right now for testing. It'll be part of the Tinta line of watches, incorporating advances from that line, such as the dial being part of the movement.

The Tinta collection will increase, we've already announced that watches will be available in 39mm diameters as well as the current 42mm size. We'll be doing special requests such as silver cases, as we like the way the metal patinates and develops its own look. Silver is unique to ochs und jr, we have looked at bronze and PVD cases but those are being done well by other brands and we don't want to repeat them.

We are working on a web shop, were you can buy online, that should be available soon. We're working on a new, unannounced new watch that we hope to show later this year, but mum's the word on that for now.

And of course, we're working on our new space in Lucerne, to open in April at Zurichstrasse 49. 180 square meters, with a manual Gaggia espresso machine from the 1960s that should be here soon, and we have found that many watch lovers are also big coffee aficionados as we are. We buy coffee from local roaster Black and Blaze, so come in for espresso and watches!

That space will be our communications platform, our office, our workshop, we have a photo studio in it and products beside watches made or designed by some of our close friends. We will have hand made sneakers from Ilmia, Desiger light from Wald-Haus and Christian Deuber, Handmade longboards from Indiana and different other useful, design oriented and cool things. The space will be a concept store and probably a unique statement for a watch store...

PH: I was curious about the Settimana Junior. Does it sell well? Who buys it?

BW: That came about when we noticed that there are few nice watches for kids. It was a concept born in two minutes. The others are all disposable plastic! The idea of a one-week timeline was natural. With the rubber strap and large numbers, it's both functional and whimsical. The Junior is, at 2,700 CHF, actually a break-even or small loss for us. We originally wanted a 1,000 CHF price but this was simply impossible. It's what we call a 'calculation stunt' and a very low price for an Oechslin original. At 36mm it's often seen on the wrists of cool adults with a sense of humor.

Watch Industry Wishes For 2012

admin — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 19:12:51 +0000

This is an interesting article I did for Departures that I felt would be of interest to my aBlogtoRead.com readers. It involves my wishes for 2012 (and slightly beyond) in terms of what I want the watch industry to focus on. Check it out here at the Departures International website.

Written by Mr. Ariel Adams - aBlogtoRead.com, trusted independent watch media.

Coolest Watches Of 2011 Round-Up

admin — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:20:19 +0000

It is the end of the year and you people are entitled to your lists, round-ups, and best-ofs. I am not a man of superlatives - so please stop asking me what my favorite watch brand, model, or food is. We thankfully live in a world were it is not necessary to choose favorites, and sampling is encouraged (my horological polyamory will continue unscathed). Having said that, I've chosen ten of the most desirable, interesting, or just plain cool watches of 2011 covered here on aBlogtoRead.com. Check them out below is no particular order:

-MB&F LM1

-Sinn EZM 10

-Omega Speedmaster Co-Axial Chronograph

-Breguet Type XXI 3810 Titanium

-Frederic Jouvenot Halios

-Harry Winston Opus Eleven

-Zenith El Primero Stratos Flyback

-Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Compressor Diving GMT Chronograph

-Ressence Watch

-HD3 Slyde Watch

Written by Mr. Ariel Adams - aBlogtoRead.com, trusted independent watch media.

No related posts.

A Brief History Of Watches

admin — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:45:16 +0000

I thought that this simple timeline chronology that briefly discusses the history of watches was interesting and worth sharing. The file was too large to insert as one long image, so I had to cut it up. Click on the images to get larger ones in the photo gallery. Enjoy and thank you to SwissTimeMachine.co.uk for the graphic.

Written by Mr. Ariel Adams - aBlogtoRead.com, trusted independent watch media.

Top Reasons You Want A Nice (Expensive) Watch

admin — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 07:07:10 +0000

The matter of wearing and enjoying fine timepieces is a passion that these days must be justified. It's true, we as practical men and women succeed in life not via waste, but via efficiency. To adorn an item (be it timepiece or otherwise) that quite possibly defies those reasons we came to afford such an item in the first place is something worth discussing. Bottom line, if you want to wear a nice watch, do so with good health, and be able to explain why to others why they should to.

During the last year I found myself being frequently interviewed by other journalists and writers on the topic of watches and my job overall. Questions common to all of these sessions included an inquiry on "why to wear a luxury watch... what makes a luxury watch.... how can a man benefit from wearing a high-end timepiece?, etc..." The answer to all of these related questions is extremely non-obvious and I really had to give it some thought. To start, I revisited an article I previously wrote here on what it is like to wear a luxury watch.

Luxury brands toil with this question themselves and equally want you to think about it as well as be ignorant of it. On the one hand they never want someone to purchase something with full cognizance that they are either buying an emotionally related purchase that they don't strictly need, or that it is priced much higher that it is worth as a commodity. At the same time, for you to buy such watches again and again, us consumers need to be in-touch with our inner "splurger" to savor the feelings we get from owning and wearing fine things.

So why do we want or need high-end watches? Thinking about this question made it clear to me that a response essay was due. I first want to comment on the culture of luxury - something you either live in or don't understand. The culture of luxury (as I call it) is a collective appreciation and desire of finely made things from brands commonly recognizable for various adjectives including "expensive, successful good taste, classy, high-society, important, etc..." Cultures that value luxury also socially value these personal descriptors in a very real way. Not only that, but to be comfortable socially in some of these cultures you actually need to display these messages on your body (in some form or another) as much as possible. When thinking about cultures of luxury I think about parts of Europe, much of Asia, and a lot of the Middle East. So some of the reasons to wear nice watches relates to these people.

Be Taken Seriously

As I began to discuss above, social etiquette often involves looking your best. People judge how smart, tasteful, attractive, and successful you are based on visual indicators. These visual indicators are extremely powerful, and more often than not, people come to conclusions about you before you even open your mouth. To be taken seriously, you must look serious.

I will spare you the 1950s style instructions on explaining how "Johnny" can look his very best before going over to "Jenny's" parent's house to pick her up to go to the dance. The end story is that if you want to impress Jenny and her parents, you need to dress up well, comb your hair, shine your shoes, stand up straight, and give her dad a firm handshake. While cheesy sounding, this is almost a total metaphor for how to be taken seriously in business and social situations.

Being serious is more than being acceptable. The finishing touch on any man are those individual items above and beyond tied shoelaces that help people come to conclusions about who you are. Most men dress rather generically, but if you are the type to have stand-out shoes and a clever scarf... and are still going to pick up "Jenny," then she is a lucky gal. As for the rest of us, we don't have many opportunities to signal success other than the watch on our wrist.

So wear a nice watch. Have something that shines in the light and glistens with the right mixture of metal and color. Make it seem like you saved up for it, or it is a cherished treasure you restored after your father gave it to you. Better if it is something unique and you spent some time finding just the right one versus stopping at the watch counter at your local department store and choosing a model you like from a European sounding brand whose name you can easily pronounce.

Having something like that on your wrist is a message to people dealing with you that you should be taken seriously. It can backfire of course if your watch exudes wasteful excess or bad taste, but in the end is better than showing up to a business meeting with a polyurethane sports watch with a green tinted LCD screen. I've been told more than once "in Europe a business man is not taken seriously if he is not wearing a mechanical watch."

In the end, being taken seriously is a simple formula: being noticed + valuation of worth = degree serious perceived. The watch will help get you noticed, and the watch you are wearing will indicate the value of your worth. How's that for a short response?

Be Unique

Above I mentioned that to be taken seriously you need to be noticed with a nice watch. The question can then become "what watch?" Us men have precious few accessories we can wear to separate ourselves from each other. I take that back, us men have precious few generally well-viewed upon socially acceptable accessories we can wear to separate ourselves from each other. If you want to be one of those guys who wears a lot of jewelry, unique hats, and face tattoos... go right ahead.

What we have to differentiate ourselves is wrist real estate. A place where manly men and business men equally can wear something without causing additional questions to be asked. It is this space where we as individuals can communicate our taste, values, etc... This means that the watch we wear communicates a lot about who we are (or what mood we want to give off that day).

If you are a generic person you can wear a generic watch. If you are a unique person you can find a unique watch that fits your personality. You may not want to stick out all the time (which is why the world gave us Rolex Submariners), but when you do it starts with either what is on your wrist or your loud mouth. The watch world is full of limitless design - you want to take advantage of all the options.

Hand Fetish

They say that eyes are a window to one's soul. That may be true, but so are your hands. You may not have noticed it, but hands are extremely communicative when people talk. Either hands are part of elaborate Italian-style gesticulation, or they offer more subtle signs as to how someone is feeling. When communicating with others we almost always notice their hands. Think about it the next few times you are talking to someone. Close to the hands are the wrists, and one one of those wrists could be a watch.

As human beings we have hand fetishes. We use them, notice them, and touch them. We also like nice things touching our hands. A fine watch is pleasing on the skin. Well-made metal and other materials that are soft and secure feeling - giving you something interesting to run your fingers over from time to time. Perhaps that is why I play with my watch when fidgeting.

People looking at your hands will likely notice what is on your wrist. Give them something to enjoy that is worth all the attention.

Eye Candy

Each time I visit an art museum I think to myself "how wonderful would it be to be surrounded by beautiful art in my home all the time" I also consider how expensive of a proposition that is. Like most people I love art, and little of it I can take with me where I go. A few years ago I started to realize that there was art sitting on my wrist.

The basic scheme of an analog watch is simple and consistent. The way of expressing it is where all the creativity comes in. Watch design is therefore inherently artistic. There is a lot of crap out there, but the best stuff is beautiful and how often do you call a tool beautiful?

Art on a watch can come in many forms. The dial can literally be a painting, or the design of the instrument itself is where the art comes in. For many people, the movement contains as much art as the case and dial. Art is the expressive elements placed over the necessary functional parts - so almost every watch has at least a bit.

For those like me who need a little art in their lives daily, you'll have no problem finding many watches that move you just like a masterpiece in paint.

Something to Remember You By

Not only is a timepiece the quintessential gift but it is the quintessential heirloom. While morbid in its tone, it is sometimes a good idea to consider life from beyond the grave. No matter what your philosophy is on the end of life, we can all agree that people can live on through the memories of those that knew them.

I own a few timepieces from people I knew that are now deceased. Having these watches makes me think of them. Not just in general way, but in a real and breathing way. They wore these watches for a long time. The watches show signs of use and love, and life. To be honest I wouldn't care if these watches were $50 or $50,000 in value as long as they made me think of these people. The benefit however of passing down a nicer watch is that it is more likely to survive the test of time. You could also argue that it helps maintain a better image of you after you go, but that is up to the person leaving the watch.

A watch collection is also a legacy. It doesn't necessarily have to be worth a mint, but leaving your watch(es) to someone you care about is an enduringly positive thought about passing on those values that were important to you, to someone else.

Enough Reason?

The funny thing about all this is that is on paper the justification for wearing and buying nice watches doesn't compare to the real life obsession so many people have with watches. For me, that is really the funny part of all this. It is about measuring one value over another. We like nice expensive watches even though cheap watches exist to do the same thing. Educated watch lovers vastly prefer mechanical watch over quartz ones even though quartz pieces are more accurate and arguably more convenient.

A love of nice watches is emotional; a love of watches in general is practical (we like to easily tell the time). I believe that for me, the above reasons are the top ones why I lust for the finer watches in life. The psychology behind it is fascinating because of the pleasure it brings me (and others). The best thing you can do if you are also addicted to timepieces is simple, get your friends hooked as well.

Written by Mr. Ariel Adams - aBlogtoRead.com, trusted independent watch media.

Funding A New Watch Brand With Kickstarter.com

admin — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 07:04:57 +0000

So you wanna build a watch? It is a common dream of enterprising watch lovers to simply posit "I just want to start my own watch brand." It actually isn't as hard as you might think. There is a universe of services, companies, and resources to help you when starting from scratch. In fact, aBlogtoRead.com contributing writer Paul Hubbard wrote a post on this very topic here. There you'll find information on actually making the watch, but more importantly is funding your project.

Whether you are interested in starting a new brand or just building a one or two models, you'll need money upfront for the design and prototyping. Then you'll need more money for the industrialization and actual production. In between are costs for marketing, customer service, and a series of other little money-eaters.

The potential pay-off is real. If you build a nice looking watch you can made a handsome profit given a reasonable margin on your production and design costs. Though funding a large scale production of watches without an existing marketing is a very risky move. So how do you proceed?

One typical practice when money is tight is to build a prototype or just a computer mock-up design, and then solicit people for pre-order money. These people pay a fraction of the retail amount (usually at a discount because they are pro-ordering), and then the rest when the watches are actually delivered. Such small production runs are usually limited, which is a good thing as people place additional value on limited edition watches. So on the one hand you get the peace-of-mind knowing "model X" will only have 200 pieces, and the consumer feels that they are getting something exclusive as "model X" will only be available as 200 pieces.

After you have collected enough pre-order money you fund production of the watches. The safety here is that aside from initial design and possible prototyping, you aren't going to be out production money unless something awful happens and you need to pay back all the pre-order customers. Again, I am simplifying the process here to give you an overall picture of how a small watch production goes.

The big question goes back to "where do I find these pre-order customers?" The traditional answer has been on the dedicated watch forums where such customers tend to hang out. Sometimes these watches will be discussed on blogs such as mine, but for the most part these watch projects live within smaller communities. So how do you take the same business plan but get more people interested? A great resource is Kickstarter.com.

Kickstarter.com is a great tool for people with an idea looking for money. It is a type of "crowd-funding" service that allows people to pitch their products or ideas and have people become project "backers." Backers dedicate a certain sum of money that is only taken out of their bank accounts when an overall monetary goal as been reached.

Let me give you an example. Say I want to build the model X watch as a limited edition of 100 pieces to start. I know that I need $40,000 to produce the first 100 pieces and I want the retail price to be $1,000. I go to Kickstarter.com and post the project with a full description of the watch including video of me talking about how cool model X will be. I create a goal amount of "$50,000" and tell people that if they pledge $500, they will get the watch that will later retail for $1,000 when the second production starts. I tell them that the first run watches are special limited editions with unique casebacks, colors, etc... Project times vary but are usually about 45 days. This is a protection to backers to ensure that projects don't just sit around forever until they are fully funded.

If I get 100 backers at $500 each, then the project will produce $50,000. $40,000 of which will go to producing the first 100 watches, and $10,000 of which is profit. That is how you fund an initial watch production. The good news is that after initial production has started and you've made 100 pieces. The machining for the watches is still intact. This means you can produce the next 100 (or however many) pieces at a cheaper cost. You also know that because the first 100 pieces sold,Â perhaps you can sell more. Kickstarter.com not only can provide you with the necessary eyes to fund the project, but was also the monetary conduit (but they take a modest cut of course).

So how does all this translate into real world experiences? To find out I talked to a few people that are actually in (or just finished) the process of funding watch projects on Kickstarter.com. I spoke to Zach Raven whose project is here, and Thomas Young whose project is here. There are more added to Kickstarter all the time.

What they have in common is that they are new to the watch game or not serious industry insiders and are offering backers a range of things that they can pledge on. For each of them Kickstarter.com was a great place to fund their project for a few reasons - but the process is not without some limited drawbacks.

The best part of Kickstarter seems to be the instant access to a large audience of people - who are actually interested in dedicating money to back projects. Not only that, but using Kickstarter.com is a bit like free advertising given all the eyes. At the same time, you'll have a dedicated project page on Kickstarter that you can market yourself.

It is worth noting that Kickstarter must individually approve projects. You need to look at their terms and conditions and understand that your project will not be automatically approved. Kickstarter.com is interested in helping people start their dream projects, and wants to make sure there is equal value for the project starter and the backers. Kickstarter does not want you to use their service merely to sell existing products.

Kickstarter offers you a large one-page style area to offer text, images, and videos about your project. You are limited to their format, but of course have the option of having a separate external website. Kickstarter offers you the ability offer various items for backers to pledge for. Though it does make it a bit tough for people to back something multiple times (they want more than one) or for you to offer a few things at the same price (pledge amount).

How do you get your money? Kickstarter handles the transactions and money goes through Amazon Payments that you'll need to hook up to your bank account. It seems rather straight forward, though I don't know how it works with international accounts. Backers only have money taken from them if your goal amount is met, and it happens when the project timeline ends. The biggest drawback people experience is the amount Kickstarter and Amazon Payments take. I hear that in total it is about 8-9%Â (Kickstarter takes about 5% and Amazon Payments takes about 3.5%) of the total amount you raise (though you'll need to consult with Kickstarter for precise details on fees and payment). Though most agree the amount is fair and reasonable.

According to most of the project starters I spoke with, the limitations of Kickstarter pale in comparison to the benefits. This applies not only to the Kickstarter.com service but also the site's audience. I have to say that the potential money a project can raise to get started is really impressive. A famous example is a project for an iPod Nano watch strap that had backers pledge almost one millions dollars.

The general rule of thumb is that the more serious you want backers on Kickstarter to take you, the more serious need to appear. This can mean having actual prototypes of watches available to video and photograph. If you have mere renderings and no prototype, then don't expect too much from potential backers. Timing is also important. While their money is safe unless other backers pledge for the project, people don't want you to take another year to get your watch produced. Of course, the lower the price of each watch, the less this is an issue.

Kickstarter.com is also still relatively new. This means that there is a limited learning curve to using the service, and customer service for Kickstarter is reportedly very difficult to contact. Also, there are usually thousands of projects listed on Kickstarter.com at any given time. This means that while the potential for getting a lot of eyes on your project is there, you'll need to focus on your own marketing at least to some degree.

Again, and this is an important point - Kickstarter reportedly does not see themselves as an e-commerce site to help people sell large amounts of product. Kickstarter doesn't want people using their service to sell existing products or as a way of selling pre-made products en mass. Be prepared to have to pitch your project to their people for approval.

Overall it looks like using Kickstarter is an excellent option for people interested in making and selling a single watch or starting a brand - especially if selling directly to the consumer is in your business plan. People starting a larger brand will likely use other funding sources, but overall if you are looking to make a watch (or really anything) check out what Kickstarter.com can offer you.

Written by Mr. Ariel Adams - aBlogtoRead.com, trusted independent watch media.