Bella Hadid is TAG Heuer's latest ambassador.
Some people are getting very upset about TAG Heuer announcing yet another brand ambassador, but I'm not sure why. Most of these people seem to do very little once they've been announced, and almost disappear from view within a fairly short space of time. I remember Tom Brady being announced as an ambassador not so long ago and I haven't seen much of him since, but that's not really surprising since I live in England and he's a quarterback for the New England Patriots (actually I thought he was an actor, but that's neither here nor there).
Similarly, TAG have announced another ambassador, a singer-songwriter called J Balvin. Will I ever hear another peep out of this guy? Doubtful. I don't imagine Goldsmiths will be plastering his pictures all over their walls because barely anyone in the UK knows who he is. Doubtless he is a superstar in Columbia, and doubtless that's where his efforts for TAG will be concentrated. Fair enough. They probably have a Chinese ambassador too, in fact I know they do because they made a special watch for him. I can't recall his name but he's a tennis player... (Kei Nishikori)
So why do people get so upset about it?
Well, I think it's because it's part of TAG's perceived 'commercialisation' (as a brand selling hundreds of thousands of watches I would say it's pretty commercial already), which I understand because having grown up a Metal fan and seeing bands altering their output so they could jump on the Metallica bandwagon surely pissed me off too.
But the difference is that I don't see much criticism of the actual watches (leaving aside the Manchester United abominations for a second), it seems to be the aggressive marketing that people don't like.
Aside from social media, I haven't really witnessed much in the way of aggressive marketing to be honest. I've never seen a TAG Heuer TV ad and the jewellers I frequent seem to have the same pictures of Mr Hemsworth up they've had for some time. Indeed, if anything it seems that Danny Riciardo and the wonderkid Max Verstappen seem to be under-utilised if anything, but that may be because they are promoted in Australia and Holland rather than in the UK?
But why can't TAG Heuer be like Rolex?
Why indeed? Perhaps because positioning a brand, particularly a brand which is by it's own admission 'entry-level' as a 'Rolex' would take many years and besides Rolex's whole ethos is completely at odds with TAG Heuer's. TAG is about bold statements and radical thinking, Rolex is about changing the colour of the script on the dial once a decade.
It's like saying why can't Tesla be like 'Ferrari', it's impossible. No matter what Tesla do, no matter how much power they can squeeze out of a boot-full of batteries, it doesn't matter, They are not and can never be as iconic as Ferrari.
A few years ago before I got seriously interested in watches, I assumed Rolex was 'it'. I had no comprehension of Audemars Piguet, Patek Philipe, Breguet etc... and it's all too easy to forget that for 99% of the population that's still the case. Rolex isn't the best watch ever made, but it is the best watch you'll see on the high street, so for the great unwashed it is by default 'THE' watch to have.
Omega seem to have taken the decision to push for Rolex status, and I wonder how that's working for them? The problem with doing that is that by pushing up your prices to create a higher perceived worth, you then bring yourself into direct competition with Rolex and I doubt they are going to win that fight.
TAG on the other hand have brought their prices down (although they are a bit of a mess at the moment, as new models come out I'm sure it will become more coherent) and JCB clearly stated that TAG Heuer should operate in the £1000-5000 price bracket. TAG's margin is clearly lower than Rolex so they need volume sales to make it all work, hence the need for aggressive marketing.
Now clearly I haven't experienced it, perhaps because I don't follow football... does it bother me that TAG Heuer sponsor the Premier League? Not particularly, I'm only really interested in the watches. I didn't much like the Manchester United Carrera, but it doesn't matter - no one's making me buy it. Some limited editions are really cool, some are really not. The forthcoming Red Bull Carrera looks a lot more interesting for example.
Going back to the ambassadors, Cara Delavigne was another one who disappeared off the radar. She was all 'fanfare of trumpets', then she had her special watch and then it all just sort of fizzled out and nobody really knows if she's definitely gone or not, although the announcement of Bella Hadid as an ambassador probably means she has, after all TAG don't need two models on their books.
Interestingly I believe Bella is enormously popular with the Instagram types and all that (and that's what matters these days after all) but I can't help but think she's a bit 'generic model' to really make an impact. Whatever you think about Cara, she stood out with her crazy eyebrows and photobombs and must surely have been a better fit with TAG?
At the end of the day, it seems to me that TAG are simply grabbing the bull by the horns and tackling the modern world head on. They've chosen the mass appeal route, rightly or wrongly, and they seem to be making a good fist of it. I can well imagine a time in the not to distant future where a brand like Longines just disappears. I can't see any reason to buy a Longines watch, it is neither spectacular or terrible, it just is... and they are almost without exception, exceptionally dull.
At least dull is not a word that can be used to describe TAG Heuer.
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