According to Ariel: The Industry Must Resist The Temptation To Surround Itself With Sycophants

“Thanks for the support” is a ubiquitous remark that I and most other watch writers hear from luxury brands. The statement seems innocent enough, but it nearly always left a bad taste in my mouth. Not only was this often the only thanks we received for our travel time, attention, and coverage, but I never felt as though it actually responded to what brands should be thanking us in watch media for. “Thanks for the support” isn’t a thanks for coverage or helping brands to deliver their important messages to collectors and other interested consumers. Rather, it is code for “thanks for being only positive in your coverage of us and saying nothing that would embarrass the brand.” The reality is that aBlogtoWatch has never sought to offer such a style of “support” and the reminder that brands mostly measure “positive sentiment” glosses over the real value that media attention offers them. I think it is time for me to directly advise the watch industry (especially those who are most guilty of this practice) that they need to reconsider their policy of surrounding themselves almost exclusively with “supportive” yes people.

Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about editorial and journalistic freedom in the watch industry space, or lack thereof. My colleague Astrid Wendlant  detailed on her Miss Tweed website how she and a few other French media publications were essentially barred from discussions with LVMH managers. Not long after, colleague Victoria Gomelsky wrote an article in The Robb Report detailing her own frustration with how the luxury and watch industries do not respect journalists or the journalistic process. I’ve been working on my own article about personal experiences in that regard, but until that discussion is ready, I want to address part of the core issue: that brands are misguided in their worry about criticism and exposure of facts they might find unfriendly to their cause.

Something that I will discuss more in the future is the simple fact that there is very little history or culture of real journalistic attention to the luxury watch industry. The last time journalists seriously cared about the watch industry was prior to its near-complete merger with the luxury industry. Since watches became toys for the rich, most coverage around it was relegated to “buying guides,” or other types of media attention that primarily focused on very brief mentions of products that consumers might be interested in. For decades, media coverage of watches was without much opinion or depth, didn’t focus on the companies or industry itself, and typically lacked the apparent need for journalistic rigor. Little of that changed when publicly traded groups started to invest in watch brands, ostensibly prompting investor inquiry as to the happenings of held companies so that financial decisions could be made.

When media covered a watch brand (at least in recent history), it was often connected to an advertising buy, and thus, the coverage was anywhere from neutral to glowingly positive. For a long time, watch brands experienced almost no real pushback or feedback from media, or consumers for that matter. The only feedback they received was from retailers and salespeople, and such feedback was strictly discreet. Then the internet happened and the information dam broke. Starting in the mid-1990s and blossoming heavily after social media usage became popular, the watch industry was suddenly unable to control what was being said about it. The only thing they seemingly had access to was who could see or own their products. They had no control over pundits and personalities online who would remark on their products no matter whether they saw them in person or not.

The reaction from the watch industry to the new era of media has been mixed. Not all brands closed up and sought to surround themselves with exclusively positive voices. Companies like MB&F (and those like them) courted online media early on because it was clear that the value of attention and coverage was far more important than controlling the message. MB&F’s Max Busser quickly realized there was a universe of passionate timepiece lovers online, and that it was far smarter to court and cater to them than behaving in a defensive or standoffish manner. That strategy paid off really well for MB&F and the many other companies who simply try to let media do what they do, even if they aren’t serious investors in advertising, etc. Unfortunately, not all companies have been as practical or in touch as the MB&Fs of the world.

The recent situation with the Patek Philippe Cubitus launch (and some of Thierry Stern’s remarks) ruffled many people’s feathers and caused a storm of backlash against the typically proud and noble legacy Swiss watchmaker. Patek Philippe has been one of the most protective brands when it comes to making sure people don’t say negative things about them, which ironically ended up with a huge wake of negative coverage and commentary. In response to the feedback about the Cubitus watch and its launch, Patek Philippe’s Mr. Stern more or less said that he didn’t care what those people thought and that he is confident his inner circle loves the Cubitus. The more you analyze it, the more you realize that the inner circle of people he is talking about are just sycophants who glorify his every move. And why shouldn’t they? Any deviation from that attitude would almost immediately result in their expulsion from the inner circle. Fear of being left out as a “friend” of the popular luxury brand is enough to keep most voices quiet.

Patek Philippe is not the only watch brand to self-select the people who report on its products or news, but in a lot of ways, the Geneva firm typifies just what is wrong with the practice. For a number of years, Patek Philippe has had a strict policy that the only media who are invited to its events to view its product launches are those media who have an established track record of being nearly exclusively supportive with Patek Philippe. That essentially means that if you dare criticize or question the beauty, value, or wisdom of the brand, you will not be invited back. Clearly not everyone at Patek Philippe or the brands who do this agree with the practice. The mandate is top-down from the management, and the consequences are dire for employees who “allow” for anything but positive media to be created. That means marketing and public relations people also suffer in concert with the media who get pushed out. This creates a culture within many luxury watch brands where the staff is mostly interested in not upsetting the management, as opposed to actually promoting the brand or entertaining constructive criticism. Depending on the company (and there are far more than just Patek Philippe), the internal culture can be rather toxic, as well as ultimately defeating for a brand’s marketing goals and communication needs.

The story of The Emperor’s New Clothes has been often referenced to explain the shortcomings of a yes man-only approach to surrounding yourself with opinions and feedback. When everyone around you is too afraid to tell you something you need to hear, then you end up missing very vital information. You see, the watch industry is at its best when creative people make unilateral decisions and then see how the market deals with the execution of those decisions. That allows new ideas to be implemented because otherwise any creative idea would get “stuck in committee.” Thus, there is a point to allowing someone in charge to defy opinion and go their own route. This however is entirely different than isolating one’s self from all but positive feedback and opinions. Managers should ultimately decide what is bests for their brands, but it should be as a result of being exposed to and listening to a variety of opinions and feedback. Very little positive happens when a company or manager is only surrounded by people who love what they do. This might be good for the ego, but it is bad for business.

When I was growing up reading consumer media and product reviews, I always felt that the negative feedback a writer might offer to a brand through an article was typically constructive at the end of the day. Rarely, if ever, would a member of the media outright criticize a company or its managers, but would rather give well-intentioned feedback on how products could be better or the brand could appeal more to consumers. Media acted as a very valuable system of checks and balances against siloed company decisions. Media feedback helped consumers make valuable decisions but also helped brands “do it better next time,” and thus improve along the way. No company only releases “hits,” and to get more “hits,” they often need to carefully understand the marketplace and the opinions of experts.

Brands also need to understand that the media does not typically originate negative feedback, but rather often just reports about it and shares the feelings many consumers have. I, for one, have been punished (truly punished) by luxury brands for simply voicing what many consumers or people in the industry already feel. By merely lending a voice to a common sentiment (usually a problem that needs to be fixed), I have been heralded as unsupportive, untrustworthy, and in some instances, dangerous. Really? Dangerous because my goal is to strengthen the industry that makes products I love, so that more people can be interested in also buying those products? The totality of my work has been to promote the watch industry and the love of watches as an attractive hobby. That’s my goal and mission in this career. So, it proves remarkably dysfunctional when the industry I report on attempts to stifle my and other’s work because they are superficially threatened by it.

Followers of the luxury and watch industries clearly want more journalism. aBlogtoWatch is mainly set up as a place for editorial, meaning it focuses more on opinion as opposed to reporting. That said, we are happy to venture more into the space of journalism rather than more of a focus on giving our opinions on specific watches. When I say “journalism,” what I am referring to is gathering and analyzing what is already happening, then summarizing it for an interested audience. The industry does not make producing actual journalism safe, unless it is supportive. When the industry feels media isn’t being directly supportive, certain brands try to isolate that voice and hope that the media outlet or writer simply goes away. That’s ultimately not good for the industry or the consumers who fund it.

Preventing potentially critical voices from attending a watch launch event and speaking to managers is not becoming more visible to the public at large. The active consumer audience online can readily see through social media coverage who and who isn’t being invited to don white gloves and touch the latest “masterpiece” from Patek Philippe or others who participate in the practice of only surrounding themselves with opinion mercenaries whose positive coverage they can trust. Patek Philippe’s clear fear of having any oppositional voices around them does not create a sense of trust and legitimacy with consumers that a brand like that needs to maintain. Patek Philippe ends up looking insecure, unprofessional, and out of touch. The careful personality of stately stability that their managers have spend decades trying to develop, appears tattered around the edges.

Listening to critical voices and negative feedback is also very valuable for watch brands. aBlogtoWatch’s regular complaints about repeated design mistakes or confusing marketing messages has indeed resulted in many many industry improvements over the years. How do I know this? Because so many managers in the watch industry space have either thanked my personally or other members of the aBlogtoWatch staff for helping them to improve and refine their products and marketing approach. The ability for brands to get (essentially free) feedback about what they are doing is priceless. Many companies (often outside the timepiece space) spend huge amounts of money on focus groups, market sentiment, and other data to help them understand how they are doing and what consumers think. Those companies would kill for the volume of free data that is available to watch industry managers about both their own brands, but also their industry as a whole. With that said, while there are plenty of enterprising minds in the watch industry space that readily make use of valuable community feedback, major brands and companies are still more prone to ignore it and try to distance themselves from anything that might appear negative. The wiser reality is that embracing a diversity of opinions you agree with, and those you don’t agree with helps your company do better in the long run.

Insecurity and ego — as opposed to logic and effectiveness — are the two dangerous feelings that promulgate a luxury brand’s tendency to evict “non-believers” from earshot. In today’s opinion-rich environment online, trying to eliminate bad sentiments is a myth. Rather, the goal should be to make as many people care about what you are doing as possible. Someone offering a negative review of a product, is typically doing so because they care enough about a brand to give their two cents about how to make it better. The brand they are talking about is free to ignore their opinion, but what use is there in trying to censor it? All you end up doing is punishing people who care about you. I promise that the “yes men” brands surround themselves with are far less interested in the brand or products, but rather in the positive feeling they get from being included in an event or meeting. Brands know this and capitalize on this human weakness in order to ensure that only “friends” get to talk about them. However, well this strategy of only inviting supportive media to events seemed to work in the past, today’s ultra-transparent world is making that manipulative media coverage strategy far less effective.

What luxury brands should be doing is openly surrounding themselves with opinions and voices that matter – regardless of how friendly they are. People who were once negative might be positively surprised and offer glowing support after seeing a new launch they love. The reality is that brands cannot and should not try to predict media coverage. They should rather make it as easy and convenient as possible for a diverse level of voices to cover a story. That’s what the consumer landscape expects, and it is frankly the cheapest and most effective way for a company to get both product feedback and insights as to what the marketing is thinking. Other than protecting the delicate feelings of a watch brand manager who loathes the idea of having their decisions questioned, there is simply no longer any value to a luxury brand putting so much effort into surrounding itself exclusively with positivity. The next time a brand offers me thanks for the “support,” I will counter by thanking them for letting me do my job.