In these tough times for the watchmaking industry, having a long and strong history to rely upon can make the difference between soaring high and crashing out altogether. Even that, though, is no assurance of success. It has recently become painfully clear that a strategy that is at once backward-looking and forward-thinking is necessary. Things are currently so dire that even legendary names like Ulysse Nardin (founded in 1846) and Girard-Perregaux (established all the way back in 1791) are feeling the strain, but one brand that seems to be weathering the storm rather better is Breitling, which originated in 1884. The difference in the fortunes of this trio raises an interesting question: what makes Breitling watches and the brand of Breitling itself so special?
Under the leadership of current CEO Georges Kern, Breitling has enjoyed a period of sustained success, which has seen the revival of several classic model lines and a keenness to position the brand as trendy, youthful, and culturally broad. Breitling has relentlessly pursued partnerships with other esteemed brands and institutions outside of the watchmaking industry while accruing a veritable army of ambassadors to spread the brand’s influence far and wide, tapping into a whole host of tangental demographics in the process.
Just recently, Breitling announced its partnership with the NFL, releasing a special version of the Chronomat B01 42 for every NFL team (limited to 104 pieces per design marking the NFL’s 104 th anniversary). With an existing partnership with active player Trevor Lawrence (the Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback) and the fact he is just one member of the brand’s “All Star Squad”, aligning with one of the world’s biggest sports corporations somehow feels like a natural move, even if it would be hard to imagine other brands of such high repute pursuing what might have seemed like a somewhat gimmicky collaboration were it not for Breitling clearly building towards such activations over a long period of time.
Along with Lawrence, the All Star Squad comprises NBA great Giannis Antetokounmpo, snowboarding Olympian Chloe Kim, and Norwegian football giant Erling Haarland, which could point towards future endeavours with these athletes’ associated sports. But how is it that Breitling, long regarded as the choice for aviators, has managed to become so ingrained in the world of not just sport but also fashion (with designer Victoria Beckham launching her own line of Chronomats)? How has a brand that would once have been seen as extremely male-targeted managed to become so broadly admired?
If you ask anyone in the industry about building a luxury brand, they are likely to reference the importance of staying on message and of adhering to clearly defined parameters of what a brand does do and, perhaps even more importantly, what it doesn’t. In that regard, it would be easy to point the finger at Breitling for being simply opportunistic and spreading itself too thinly in the hope that by throwing a lot of darts at the board, at least one will hit the bull’s eye.
However, when one takes a step back from seeing the brand as a composite of the highly technical products with which it has long been most closely associated and thinks more philosophically about what the brand of Breitling is in essence, things start to make a bit more sense and everything Kern has pushed Breitling towards begins to feel as credible as the more conservative, product-focused strategies of high-level competitors.
Breitling has always been a pioneer. It is that spirit that ties the modern version of the brand to the historic name that was always known for being at the forefront of new endeavours, be they technical or human. What makes Breitling so special is, therefore, not as much about the watches themselves as it might be for many other brands; it is more about this insatiable desire for change, progress, and risk — something the brand seems more than willing to shoulder. That sets it apart from its stuffier peers, who might have preferred to sell watches by referencing what they did in the past rather than gamble their reputation on apparently disconnected ambassadorships designed to bring the brand to a younger, more dynamic audience that cares more about the “now” than the “then”.
And by pursuing this strategy so incredibly aggressively, Breitling has managed to make it stick. The sheer number of ambassadors, spread across the four current “Squads” (the aforementioned All Star Squad, the Navitimer Squad, the Triathlon Squad, and the Surfer Squad) and the seemingly constant churn of squad members is quite impressive to behold. Fearless promotion has almost become the central tenet of a brand that also happens to have some of the industry’s most classic and well-respected (not to mention frequently copied) models in the industry. But a breakdown of those is for another day...
