00:00Swiss precision meets British horsepower as luxury watchmaker Breitling joins forces with
00:11Aston Martin's Aramco Formula One team. I spoke to Breitling CEO Georges Cairn who says the time
00:18is right for his company to return to a Formula One partnership and why it's all about finding
00:23the right brand to team up with. It's two things it's obviously brand awareness building brand
00:30awareness in particular in Asia Formula One is extremely strong in Asia in China in particular
00:36and then you have this image transfer we have been approached by many Formula One teams but in
00:44my opinion there are only three Formula One teams with such a great image and one of them being
00:50Aston Martin and as I said we have been also in in Thunderball in James Bond where you know Sean
01:00Connery was wearing a Breitling watch and driving a DB5. Some of the drivers who were wearing
01:10Breitling were Aston Martin drivers Jim Clark for instance and it's quite authentic and these two
01:19aspects I would say brand awareness and image transfer are the two key elements of this collaboration.
01:27You talk about Asia and China of course has become a crucial market for luxury watches. How are consumer
01:36tastes evolving there and how central is the region to Breitling's growth strategy?
01:43Well the USA represents 25% of our turnover. It's clearly our number one market but you know you cannot
01:55find demography and the demography in in Asia in particular in China with 1.4 billion people is
02:01still there. Of course there's been a slowdown of last especially after Covid of the last couple of
02:07years but the market is still there and will recover like all the other markets in this region and
02:14therefore we needed also to balance our investments as I said the NFL clearly targeting the US but also
02:23Europe. There will be now a game in Paris for instance and Aston Martin of course in Europe but
02:30also in particular in China as the impact is gigantic and therefore it works very well as a package in terms
02:40of our investments. You talk about James Bond and racing car drivers but I want to know who is wearing
02:48Breitling watches because fewer people wear a watch now to tell the time don't they? We've got our phones
02:53and tech tells us what the weather is and what our sleep patterns are doing so what is the enduring lure
03:00of a timepiece like yours and what age range is driving that market? You know we don't segment by age
03:11or by income it's more lifestyle we target a certain lifestyle we target people obviously admiring in
03:17this case Aston Martin we target people who like surfing you know we are partnering or we partner
03:24with Kelly Slater and many other surfers around the world we participate in a kind of social
03:32phenomenon the NFL in the US is a social phenomenon and we are part of that so it's more a lifestyle and
03:39that client could be male or female could be 18 years old or could be 60 years old it doesn't matter
03:47it's the style of our brand which I think here is in the center here of our work
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