The Fourth Wheel, Issue 120: Ask Me Anything

Your questions answered: The tackiest tie-ins, advice for Breguet, Greg Yuna's Talking Watches and what the future holds for watch media and independent brands.

Hello and welcome back to The Fourth Wheel, the weekly watch newsletter that is once again answering your enquiries. I love it, I honestly do - not because it spares me thinking of a subject for the week but because it forces me to address topics I’d overlooked, encourages me to see things from other perspectives, and gives me a brilliant insight into what it is that’s on your minds, as watch collectors, enthusiasts and professionals. So thank you to everyone who submitted a question. I appreciate it. And if you want to continue any of the AMA lines of enquiry, I’ll be there in the chat!

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The Fourth Wheel is a reader-supported publication with no advertising, sponsorship or commercial partnerships to influence its content. It is made possible by the generous support of its readers: if you think watch journalism could do with a voice that exists outside of the usual media dynamic, please consider taking out a paid subscription. You can start with a free trial!

Here’s a little taste of what you might have missed recently:

Hall’s Gastronomy of Watchmaking
Fresh Detail On Chanel’s Investment In MB&F
James Thompson: Not Just ‘The Lume Guy’
Unsung Heroes: The Best Watches You’ve Forgotten Exist
World Exclusive: Horological Dicktionary On The Record

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Ask Me Anything

I would be interested in your take on all the sports partnership deals and if they actually move the needle from a press and consumer standpoint? - Nicholas

All the sports, he says! Nice and easyI mean let’s start with some base level assumptions: advertising works. At the macro level, anyway; visibility translates to brand-name awareness, which translates to sales. To what extent is dependent on other factors, but looking beyond watches, I’m prepared to say that the likes of Samsung, Budweiser, Hyundai and McDonalds aren’t massively invested in sports partnerships just for the sheer love of it. It must be moving the needle commercially. But we’re in the watch world, not fast-moving consumer goods, or household necessities¹ like TVs and cars. Do people really buy luxury goods based on what’s on the side of an F1 car, or in a tennis player’s bag? I’d say there is still a powerful subliminal effect especially at the top-level, saturation marketing approach taken by Rolex, for example. Is Rolex already so desirable that it doesn’t need these things? It would be a mistake to think so, and that’s why it holds onto them (F1 rumours notwithstanding). And that, in turn, motivates others to act in the same way. So if you don’t have Rolex budgets, you end up sponsoring ten pin bowling or lacrosse or the local under 15s ice hockey team, but you’re hoping for a scaled down version of the same effect.

What moves the needle for the press - and enthusiast consumers - is whether a sporting partnership feels like it makes sense and contributes to a coherent narrative around the brand. Chopping and changing all the time: not a good look. We’re not daft - while we know some watch brands had meaningful connections with sports timing back in the days where seatbelts were for sissies, we know that practically none of them now is involved on a functional level (see my previous remarks about Omega and Swiss Timing at the Olympics). So the question is: does it burnish your image, or look like you just wanted to be sponsoring something? I like Oris, a lot, and I like cricket, so I’ve been happy to see those things come closer together - and it gave me the opportunity to play at Lords once², so that’s nice. But there’s never been a real reason why the two should be in bed together. Rado is involved in cricket too, and equally, has no particular historical connection to the sport - indeed, cricket does not really need a timekeeping partner - but it has at least got the budget to commit in a big way, and its alignment with India’s most popular sport is going to serve it well. So I guess the lesson there is, if you can’t be meaningful, at least be massive. The question of limited editions also has to be finely judged; the idea of a cricket-themed dive watch might seem about as logical as a cardboard umbrella, but there are die-hard nuts in every domain, and if you’ve identified 200 of them, or whatever it may be, then go for it. But really, not every partnership needs a limited edition watch - another lesson to learn from Rolex.

Greg Yuna on Talking Watches - is this the new Hodinkee we were promised, or do grumpy nerds need to get over themselves? - Shy Nolah

Ohhhh snap! Put those claws away before someone gets hurt… If anyone’s not aware, on Sept 10th Hodinkee published a video with Malaika Crawford interviewing jeweller and after-market watch customiser Greg Yuna, and obviously the comments section lit up with remarks of this nature. Given that Ben Clymer said on July 23rd that Hodinkee would be going back to its roots, it’s a fair cop. Or is it? Leaving aside the fact that gem-setting, customisation and so on is a legitimate sub-section of watch culture, whether you like it or not (and I don’t much), I have two words for the haters: lead time.

A little internet sleuthing tells me that this video was shot in early June; Yuna opened a new boutique at 215 Mulberry St in mid-June - you can see the shots of the opening party on his Instagram - and in the opening lines of the video, he and Malaika talk about the fact the store is opening “next week”. So this was shot some time before Ben’s big ‘hit reset’ address. The question is whether it’s so wide of the mark in terms of the new (old) editorial direction as to have justified canning the entire shoot, is one I can’t answer. But good video doesn’t come cheap and I don’t know a publisher who’d welcome the idea of just jettisoning an entire film like that. Now it’s not that I’m making excuses for Hodinkee - Ben would have perhaps done well to manage expectations in terms of when and how gradually this shift in tone would come about - but it’s entirely possible he and the team still consider this Talking Watches to be on-message and on-brand for new (old) Hodinkee. If that’s the case, those voices in the comments section are going to get louder (or just leave) but I’ll end by repeating myself: this is a part of watch culture. That doesn’t mean Hodinkee is obliged to cover it; you never saw Autocar overlapping with Max Power, or The Rake stepping into HighSnobiety’s world, but if it can make a credible argument for why Greg Yuna’s the kind of person Hodinkee thinks is worth covering, then it should be allowed to make it. I’m not sure this video interrogates that question - or set out to - because it was most likely given the green light about six months ago, so I would say if this is what displeases you about Hodinkee… wait another six months before casting your stones.

Seven weeks ago, as it happened, I wrote ‘Five Things Hodinkee Should Do Now’.

The Fourth Wheel, Issue 113

You can give five pieces of advice to Breguet’s new CEO. What are they? - Felix

I had to sneak two of my five into one entry. If you want more of this, I’d listen out for a certain upcoming podcast series…

1. Hire a new creative director and a new marketing director, ideally not from one of the other Swatch Group prestige brands

2. Find a passionate, erudite, presentable collector and make them your heritage director

3. Decide what your story is going to be - is it craft? Fine finishing? Complications? Patronising the arts? - and sign off on one project that will be world-class. Doesn’t matter what it is. Just do something that communicates Breguet’s positioning and ambition and go BIG.

4. TALK. Open up, for heaven’s sake. Breguet’s response to criticism has been to bury its head in the sand and shun journalists who dare to question the strategy thus far. You are not going to win people over from an ivory tower; there needs to be a communications re-set, an admission that things are not fine and that you are going to make them better - otherwise why have you taken over after just two years of the last regime? Where are the magazine profiles, the long reads, the colourful personalities (where indeed), the social media activity, the videos? Where is the outreach?

5. Take the vintage market seriously. There is a lot of love for vintage and neo-vintage Breguet out there; invest in it, listen to the community and do whatever you have to (within, you know, the confines of the law - Swatch Group doesn’t need another auction scandal) to raise the value and profile of Breguet at auction.

What do you think is the tackiest watch brand tie-in? The most bizarre collab? (Is it Kermit?) - Ali