Let's be honest, TAG Heuer doesn't get much love in the wider watch community... undoubtedly it's partly because they still make quartz watches and that really rubs some people up the wrong way. I don't know why it annoys people so much, or why people get so agitated in general - it's only watches for God's sake! For my own part I tend not to look at other brands too much any more because any time that I've see an Omega I like it's usually five months salary (Apollo 8 Speedmaster for example) and that's not really viable for me, and other brands I like (Hublot, Richard Mille) are so far out of my price range it's not even funny. I did hanker after the 45mm Breitling Hurricane Avenger for a while, I even tried it on in the Bond Street boutique, but at £7000 it's just too much for me. On the other hand, TAG make watches that I like and they are (relatively) attainable, so I stick to what I like and what I can afford.
Breitling Hurricane Avenger 45mm - a bit too rich for me!
If you watched that video the other day with The Time Teller and Federico, you'll have heard a familiar line from Federico - he didn't agree that TAG sucked, but he had to get in there that they are overpriced. So, are TAG Heuer watches overpriced?
Ultimately, the market decides if you're over priced. Price too high and nobody buys your product and you go out of business = simple economics. TAG are doing pretty good business from what I understand, although results are posted as the LVMH group so it's hard to establish actual figures. Still, it seems certain that TAG is probably as popular as it's ever been - if not more so, and much more visible in the sporting arena with it's sponsorship programme (including Premier League football and the Red Bull F1 team) and on the high street with their own boutiques popping up in shopping centres in key areas.
I think something that people in the watch community fail to take into account when they claim that TAG Heuers are overpriced, is the amount that they spend on marketing and creating brand awareness. So yes, when you buy a brand new TAG a proportion of that cost is going to Manchester United and Red Bull and even Alec Monopoly! But that's a choice you make, The Time Teller offered up Hamilton as an example of a Swiss watch brand that wasn't overpriced. That may be so, but nobody cares about Hamilton do they? Really? Most ordinary people wouldn't even know what a 'Hamilton' is. If you said 'Hamilton' to a non watch-obsessed member of the public, they would probably come up blank, or assume you were talking about Lewis Hamilton. TAG's brand awareness is very good in comparison.
Hamilton Khaki - whateverrrrrr...
So, it seems to me that there is a distinct difference between the brands that put themselves out there, and the ones that don't, and the ones that don't are generally a lot cheaper. So from that standpoint you could argue that TAG Heuer is overpriced, but any brand that isn't Rolex needs to put themselves in front of their potential market and that costs money. Whether it's sponsoring football teams, Formula 1 teams, the Olympics or James Bond, money needs to be spent and it inevitably comes from the price of the goods sold. Omega gets a lot of love from the watch community, but their watches are just as over-priced, it just seems to be a convenient stick to beat TAG Heuer with now that the quality control issues of the past have been addressed.
In turn, brand awareness creates demand and ultimately 'value', which is why Rolex can charge the prices they do. But for some reason Rolex don't get called out on their prices the way TAG do, and it's not because Rolex watches are 'worth' the money, it's because they hold their value, which unfortunately TAG don't to the same extent. I suppose this is where the problem arises, and from my perspective it seems at least partly because TAG tend to prioritise 'design' which can leave some pre-owned models looking a bit 'last season', which of course isn't something Rolex suffer from.
Since the boom in retro styling, the other watch companies have embraced this with gusto as it plays to their strengths (think Speedmaster for example) but as an 'Avant Garde' forward looking company, TAG does have this issue that designs from five years ago can look a little dated, this in turn affects the resale values of some (but not all) models, add to this the watch community's overwhelming tendency towards staunch conservatism and 'classic' designs (verging on luddite to be honest, when was the last time you saw any watch channel recommending anything other than a Speedmaster, Submariner, Khaki, or SKX?) and you can see how TAG's problems add up.
Early quartz Links are favourites for abuse from TAG haters.
But clearly not all TAGs are equal when it comes to retaining value. I thought picking up a used Red Bull F1 for a nice price would be fairly easy, but the absolute best price I've seen is £900 which means it's lost about 30% of it's value from new, but most are £1000+ and that's excellent for any watch that isn't Rolex.
So why does Rolex hold it's value so well when other brands struggle so much? Well, for one thing Rolex do not change their range every five minutes so if you buy a Submariner today, in five years that Submariner (or one painfully similar) will still be made and it will have gone up significantly. Because of this your watch will probably be worth about what you paid for it. Non watch-people have this idea that Rolexes are a great investement, but they aren't really. If you want to make money don't buy watches full stop, but yes, it is true that unlike most luxury watches your Rolex won't lose money like a leaky bucket loses water.
I've noticed this particularly with models that are discontinued in the TAG range, like my Aquagraph. The original list price was £3000, and I bought mine at Bicester Village for £2100. It's mint and today it's probably worth £1300 max, but if that watch was still in production, the list would be £4000, and mine would be worth maybe £2000. That's the Rolex effect.
The flip side of that, is that I don't want TAG to be a safe, stagnant company that makes the same ten watches for eternity. I want them to make crazy stuff like the Microtimer, even if I personally wouldn't have paid £2000 for it new (I bought mine pre-owned for £600), but that course has definite ramifications for the pre-owned market.
But what is the alternative? When you see Rolex devotees losing their collective mind because O.M.G. there's a Submariner with a tiny bit of red text on the dial... I don't want that for TAG Heuer thank you very much.
So are TAG Heuer watches overpriced? The market says no, but objectively you could say yes, but no more so than Breitling, Longines, Omega and all the rest of their direct competitors.
Microtimer is AWESOME!
Because truthfully when it comes to luxury goods 'retail price' isn't actually a reflection of material value. Is a steel Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore really 'worth' £22,000? Certainly not in terms of it's material and components, in fact I would suggest it probably costs way less than £2000 to make that watch. But, it's an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore... in the same way that a Ferrari's just a car, but it's a Ferrari, and that costs money.
When you think about it, spending more than about £150 on a watch is pretty ridiculous, nobody needs luxury watches, they're just things we like to own. So the price is academic, they will charge what they can get. TAGs are a 'modernist' brand and they are sold in large quantities so it would be tough to address the second hand value issue, although if they could it would most likely drive up the retail price, as we've seen with Rolex and now Tudor to some extent.
But certainly I don't see myself walking into a shop and paying full retail for a new TAG, unless it's a limited edition and I'm sure I'm never go to want to sell it. But plenty of people do, and probably a large proportion of those people aren't 'watch' people really, they're just affluent consumers who see a nice watch and want to own it. But that's good from my point of view, because those are exactly the sort of people who need stimulating with new and original product and that is what I want to see from TAG Heuer!
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