SIHH 2010: The Haute Horlogerie under the WorldWatchReport’s magnifying glass

• Despite a gloomy economical context, demand expressed for Haute Horlogerie brands registers a 14% increase in 2009.Alexa Traffic Rank for htt
• Facebook becomes the biggest online community for watch fans, with more than 300'000 declared aficionados. Hublot is the most popular brand there with 56’000 fans.
• Emerging markets from the BRIC already account for 12% of global demand for luxury watches on the Internet.

• BRIC markets Brazil, Russia, India and China
• Additional contributions from opinion leaders of the industry
• Social Media impact, measured through historical data

Hublot Number 1 on Facebook

The presence of Hublot on Facebook has caught IC-Agency’s attention. With more than 50,000 fans, the "Hublot Genève" page has moved to the top, surpassing Cartier and Tag Heuer, who were until now top leaders on the social network for more than a year.

While 440% represents the average increase of new fans for all watch brands, Hublot’s performance represents an increase of 2500%.

 The opportunity to reach 400 millions potential contacts on the largest community website has not escaped Jean-Claude Biver’s attention, CEO of the brand, contacted by IC-Agency, who commented on the brand’s results:

"I am pleased to learn that these results demonstrate that we are a young, high-end brand. It may be the consequence of our general activities on the Net. I think we should use all tools available online without neglecting any of them.

Why TAG Heuer selects IC-Agency ?

Buyers of luxury goods are increasingly using the Internet to evaluate their purchases, a growing trend that is confirmed year after year by the WorldWatchReport, a market study published by IC-Agency that analyzes dozens of millions of client searches for luxury watch brands on the Internet.

TAG Heuer, a company at the cutting edge of innovation, is fully aware of this trend and has decided to reinforce its visibility in the international search engines so as to make its products more widely available and to increase brand awareness.

"Our objective is to escort our customers throughout their online experience - an experience that generally starts with a search using a search engine such as, for example, Google. This is a strategic means of access for a brand such as TAG Heuer and we want to take advantage of it in the best way possible," says Frédéric Layani, International Internet & CRM Manager for TAG Heuer.

The strategic search engine optimization assignment taken on by IC-Agency covers more than 10 markets and is not restricted to the Google, Yahoo! and MSN trio. As Marc-Olivier Peyer, Senior Innovation Specialist at IC-Agency says, "Our objective is also to achieve strategic positioning in China and Russia through Baidu and Yandex, two search engines that generate more traffic than Google in those high-growth, and increasingly online, watch markets."

According to the search engines market shares in China and Russia, the optimization of a website visibility on Google only is not enough :

 

The implemented strategy is based on an in-depth analysis of search intentions associated with the TAG Heuer brand. This approach enables the evolution of interest in the flagship models and TAG Heuer brand ambassadors-Leonardo DiCaprio, Lewis Hamilton and Maria Sharapova-to be measured.

IC-Agency has exceptional proficiency in understanding the online behaviors of "high-net-worth individuals" and is once again strengthening its position as a key player in luxury digital marketing.

"IC-Agency's strong international expertise in emerging markets, as well as their understanding of the complex world of luxury professions, particularly watchmaking, reinforced our decision to work with them," concludes Frédéric Layani.

For more information on our international search engine optimization (SEO) services, contact us.

Read the full press release.

They wrote about it : Europa Star, Worldtempus, Montres-de-luxe, LaRevueDesMontres, The Time TV, Interactive Luxury, TrustedWatch, Romandie.com, Yahoo! Finance, MSN Money, etc.

Tourism, Internet and Customer Loyalty

Yesterday, Yves-Alain Schwaar, Consulting Director for IC-Agency, hosted a workshop about the impact the Internet has had on the rules of customer acquisition and loyalty. Organized by Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL) and its research department, this event incited a great deal of interest from the audience, which consisted of directors and executives from EHL’s Alumni Enterprises.

The key players in online tourism: comparison sites, search engines, travel agencies like Ebookers, Expedia and TripAdvisor were reviewed in order to better understand their impact on a traveler’s online behavior before, during, and after their trip. It is important to note that Kayak, leader in tourism search engines overseas, has extended into Europe: further proof that things are far from stagnant.

To discover more, we invite you to consult the presentation from this workshop:
Tourism: How does the Internet Change the Rules of Customer Acquisition and Loyalty?

WorldWatchReport Results

The latest edition of Europa Star reveals a few of the main results of the WorldWatchReport, a luxury watch industry market study published annually by IC-Agency.

Learn from this article which brand and models are the most popular, what weight replica searches carry and how Omega turned its Seamaster into the most popular watch model.

“Your clients use the Internet to compare notes on brands, including yours!  Thanks to the WorldWatchReport, you can learn more about those who compose this market and their intentions.  The WorldWatchReport is essential reading for luxury watch industry decision makers” concludes Philippe Maillard, Managing Director for Europa Star.

WorldWatchReport 2007 publication

Once again, IC-Agency is making a BaselWorld appearance to present their WorldWatchReport market study.  This study showcases the luxury watch industry, analyzed by the means of the Internet.

Online luxury boom:

• The online luxury watch market is booming: all studied brands have seen increases in online demand.
• Rolex, Tag Heuer, Omega, Cartier and Breitling dominate the market: together they represent 90% of all searches in both Europe and the United States.    
• Rolex remains the world’s most popular brand in search intentions, followed by Tag Heuer in the United States and Omega in Europe.
• Jaeger-LeCoultre saw the largest increase in demand in 2006 (+39%) outpacing Omega (+29%) and Breitling (+24 %).

Counterfeit demand rapidly increasing:

• Counterfeit demand registered large increases in all of the 5 studied markets.
• The French market demonstrates astounding results: demand for counterfeit products nearly doubled from 2005 to 2006. This now represents 21% of search volume in France, 19% in Germany, 17% in the United States, 16% in the United Kingdom and 12% in Italy.
• In 2006, the brands most associated with counterfeit searches were      ranked as followed: Rolex, Breitling, Cartier, Omega and Tag Heuer. Among these brands, Breitling saw the biggest increase in 2006 (+71.8%), outpacing Rolex (+45%).

You can view a selection of graphs illustrating these trends on the report website at www.worldwatchreport.com.

Tags: baselworld, watch industry, luxury, IC Agency, watch, worldwatchreport