SJX
[Purist]
8540
Watch retail,"the Asian capital of horology" and TEMPUS - ThePuristS speaks to Michael Tay
The Hour Glass is one of the largest watch retailers in the world, with 2006 revenues topping US$250 million. But more importantly, The Hour Glass has emerged as one of the leading opinion-makers in the industry, with its championing of independent and avant garde brands like Max Busser & Friends, Urwerk and Harry Winston. Its status was cemented with TEMPUS - The Great Watchscapade, a 5-day watch extravaganza in 2004, which was and still remains, the biggest watch fair in the world outside of Switzerland.
In this article, ThePuristS speaks to Michael Tay, Executive Director of The Hour Glass. Michael is a member of the younger generation that is gradually taking the helm in the watch industry. Here he shares his thoughts on watch retailing, the idea of Singapore as a watch paradise and of course he speaks about the upcoming Tempus fair in September.
Su JiaXian (SJX) : Tell us about your motivations behind Tempus.
Michael Tay (MT) : When we first developed Tempus, very, very few people shared our vision, brands partners included. Very few people understood what we were trying to do; everybody thought it was just another watch event. The fundamental aim of Tempus is to develop the watch culture, to raise watch consciousness. In a large part as the watch world’s leading cultural-retail enterprise, we also have a duty and a part to play in this whole mechanics of the watch industry.
Michael Tay, Executive Director of The Hour Glass
It’s a very important process ensuring that we nurture future generations of watch collectors. That’s why Tempus is not just an exhibition, it’s a highly interactive, highly tactile programme specifically aimed at promoting the art of watchmaking and the science of horology by aggregating the best content there is in the market today; bringing it in and locating it in one spot - that’s the best way to describe Tempus.
We built Tempus on three key principles – accessibility, interactivity and education. As I mentioned earlier, as part of our industry development work, we feel it’s necessary to continue to ensure new groups of watch collectors. Hence programmes like Unitime with SMU , a wonderful example of an event that we did to try and spread the message. We are also relatively socialist in our thinking, we believe that watch collecting should not be an exclusive hobby for just the few; it should be an inclusive pastime of many. It doesn’t matter if somebody comes in and wants to buy a $200 or $500 or $1000 wristwatch. We believe in a 40 year cycle – in that 40 year cycle, an average consumer will buy four to seven watches, an average watch collector will buy anywhere from 20 to 30 pieces; and hopefully over time increasing in value as the [customer’s] potential to earn grows so will their proportion of disposable income.
SJX : Explain how watch retailing has changed and is still changing.
MT : Gone are the days of entertainment retailing where people go and see a show and then that’s it – you go and see an exhibition and then you leave – we always try and compare [watches] to piece of art. But unlike pieces of art, watches are highly tactile, wearable, timekeeping instruments, accessories, mechanical sculptures.
As such, the marketing, the way we communicate to clients, the whole experience of this process has to be fundamentally different. It’s OK to go to an art gallery, exhibition, and go look at paintings, sculpture; 99% of the time you’re not supposed to touch them - you’re just supposed stand there and admire them from afar. When it comes to watches, because it’s just a sensitive, tactile product, the pleasure one derives from it is not just at looking at it, but it’s actually by placing [it] on your wrist, feeling it, feeling the cold steel on your wrist. These sensations, pride of ownership, are part and parcel of the whole experience of the process of owning a high grade timepiece.
Also what’s important for us is, apart from allowing enthusiasts, collectors, members of the public, to come in look and see, touch and feel the product, it’s also important that they interact with one another, they interact with the manufacturers. And also to see and experience first hand how laborious the process is to produce a high grade watch. Hence we developed programmes like the Masterclass with Jaeger-LeCoultre.
Jaeger-LeCoultre Masterclass watchmaking workshop
All this is meant to drive empowerment; we believe we need to educate our consumers so that we can empower them with knowledge. A lot of salespeople don’t like consumers to know too much about what they buy, because afterwards they ask too many questions. We believe the opposite – the more the consumers know, the better it is for us. Now why is that? First of all, we’ll be speaking on the same wavelength; [the consumers] already understand what an automatic watch is, they understand what a mechanical timepiece does, the difference in values.
“The more the consumers know, the better it is for us”
SJX : But isn’t it easier to sell to people who know less?
MT : We want to empower consumers so they understand values, because our objective also is to ensure these consumers continue to upgrade. There’s going to be a limit they hit if they don’t understand what they’re buying. For an average consumer it could be $5000, a slightly wealthier one maybe $20,000, maybe a millionaire will put $50,000 or $100,000 but that’s it. In order for us to elevate, to keep on nudging up our collectors to start buying more high grade, more complex watches, we have to ensure that they are educated.
That knowledge gives a customer the confidence to know that he is buying intrinsic value. This intrinsic value is so difficult to communicate if people don’t experience what we do that Tempus.
SJX : How did the first Tempus event of 2004 affect the industry?
MT : Tempus has really made it mark on the world. Having spoken with collectors, even members of the public who didn’t really know too much about watches; Tempus today remains the world’s first watch fest. When I say watch fest, it is literally a festival of sorts. It is a moment where you have a congregation of the crème de la crème of the watch industry, the best brains, the best activities, the best brands, the best products – all in one place. A lot of workshops, a lot of talks, a lot of chances for peer to peer interaction, a lot of sharing and a lot of fun. It is the only programme that has managed to incorporate such tactile, such interactive educational programmes that focuses exclusively on development of watch culture and raising watch consciousness.
No other watch exhibition, till this day, can compare with it. It is also actually the world’s second largest watch event. This year Basel reported about 101,000 visitors, members of the trade and public, Geneva reported about 18,000, but that’s purely trade; you look at Tempus and what we achieved the last time round, we had about 50,000 visitors in those five days. And how did we achieve that? I am counting repeat visitors, like how Basel does. People came back day after day after day. We had a lot of people who skipped work, went outside for meetings in the afternoon and never came back to work - they got stuck at Tempus!
What brought people back day after day after day was not just the exhibits, I think had we just produced exhibits of products, people finish it within a few hours. It was because we created such incredible programming, such a variety of programming that it led people to want to come back.
Gerald Genta booth at Tempus 2004
SJX : You aim to put Singapore on the map with Tempus, tell us more about that goal.
MT : One of our missions for Tempus, apart from developing global watch culture, is also to stamp Singapore as the Asian capital of horology.
Back in 2003, we actually coined the term ‘the watch hub’. The fact that Singapore is the 8 largest watch importing nation in the world, with that it was then touted repeatedly. With hindsight, those terms actually provide the wrong perception and wrong reflection of what Singapore means to the global watch community. We have hence coined the term ‘stamping Singapore as the Asian capital of horology’.
Why do I say that? First of all, you define terms such as hubs, they really reflect a quantitative nature of a particular activity, a lot of goods coming in, going out, ideas, people coming in and out; the 8 largest watch importing nation. We’re only setting ourselves up for failure because we’ll never be able to compete with the likes of the US, Japan, Hong Kong – we don’t have the scale. Maybe in 10 years, possibly, when we hit a population of 6.5 million people. Even then that’ll be tough. We’ll never be able to compete with the likes of China, India, Russia, where they are really eating watches right now. What do we report next? We’re the 9 largest in the world? We’re the 10 largest in the world? We’re the 11 largest in the world? We can only fail in that regard, in terms of volume.
“Singapore is at least a year, maybe two, ahead of every other mature watch collecting market.”
We can never compete on quantity, we need to compete on the fact that we have some of the most qualitative content in Singapore, we have some of the world’s most sophisticated consumers, we have some of the world’s most sophisticated examples of high grade, complex horology residing in Singapore, we have some of the world’s most sophisticated retailers in the world. That is what we should be known for, not quantitative biases, we should be qualitative focused.
And why do we say a capital? Because a capital reflects a knowledge base, an intrinsic intellectual capital that resides here. Just for example, you have Bernard (ThePuristS’ Dr Bernard Cheong), he sits on the advisory board of Ulysse Nardin; Peter Chong, head of LOG (Lange Owners’ Group); I sit on the advisory board of Harry Winston. Which other Asian nation in the world, even Hong Kong and Japan, has such national representation in the global watch industry? This is why I say Singapore is really leading.
SJX : So would you say Singapore is a global leader in consumer tastes?
MT : Where Italy used to be as the global opinion leader five to seven years ago, Singapore is at least a year, maybe two, ahead of every other mature watch collecting market. The tastes of our consumers are so sophisticated, and to some extent, so extreme, that it is quite remarkable a small nation such as this can achieve it. This is why I believe we need to redefine ourselves, we are not a watch hub, we are a capital. There was an article in Les Temps during Basel, and the journalist wrote, or the translation I got anyway, in Singapore we are doing so much we might be displacing Switzerland as the capital of watchmaking. I think that’s along shot, the culture, the heritage, the history, is not there. But we do a phenomenal job for contemporary wristwatches in Singapore.
SJX : Has the industry been supportive of Tempus?
MT : We received tremendous support, we had Norbert Platt [CEO of Richemont] down here, Rolf [Schnyder of UN], Jerome [Lambert of JLC], Biver [of Hublot], Michael Wunderman [of Corum], and this time round we are expecting even more to come down. The Great Watchscapade was a phenomenal endeavour, but we still have a lot more we can improve on. A lot of brand partners are highly, highly sceptical of Tempus [in 2004] – the only reason we could convince them and the reason we held Tempus when we did was because it was our 25 anniversary so they had no choice but to support us. But after the success of the first Tempus they kept on bugging us, saying when’s the next Tempus, we want to come in again. Had we not had our 25 anniversary it would have been more difficult to convince them to come in [at Tempus 2004], but this time round they are all fully supportive, overwhelmingly supportive of the event.
Jean-Claude Biver speaking at Tempus 2004
SJX : Why did you entitle Tempus 2007 ‘The Temple of Time’?
MT : The first Tempus, the Great Watchscapade, was designed to be an exploratory journey, an adventure into the world of haute horlogerie. Three years have passed since, the watch market has matured significantly - look at the proliferation of watch news in the media - [the market] has exploded and consumers have become more knowledgeable. Now that we have established this platform, we want to make watch collecting as if it were an institution; we want people to make the pilgrimage to the Mecca of time which is Tempus, hence the name.
The format and mission remain the same, but we knew we couldn’t just replicate what we had done before. There are some other people who tried to imitate what we did, to varying degrees of success. We know we had to add more value to our exhibition; this time round we have about 55 exhibitors coming in.
SJX : What are highlights of Tempus 2007?
MT : Swiss watchmaking by JLC, we also have Glashü tte coming in with their watchmaking workshops, we thought that would give a nice contrast between Swiss and German watchmaking. We also have Chopard which is doing gemmology sessions while Harry Winston is doing a gem setting course. We have a high fired enamelling session by DeLaneau; interesting to note is out of the five living high fired enamellers in the world, two are working for DeLaneau and one of them used to work with Miklos [Merczel of JLC]. Miniature dial painting, gem setting, we’re getting somebody to come in to do fine movement finishing. We have again talks on industry development, watchmaking, culture.
High fired enamelling by DeLaneau
We are trying to broaden the horizon and perspective of watch enthusiasts and members of the public, we are having a concept for the first time of ‘Swiss Mechanical Art’ where we have Junod and Reuge. They are very exciting developments because these are actually derivatives of the watch world; they people who started these industries actually were initially watchmakers.
Harry Winston Avenue Exotic Birds for ONLY WATCH 2007
We will also be unveiling MOCHA, we will be focusing on 21 century watches. A retrospective of torsion clocks, the world’s biggest collection of such clocks. We have Antiquorum’s Only Watch, that will be very exciting because they will have some very interesting piece coming down like Richard Mille’s collaboration with Philippe Starck. We have book signings, we have guided tours of exhibits and travelling exhibitions from the manufactures. As you can see we’ve added more content, like the photohorology competition; John Clang (John is a renowned photographer and member of ThePuristS) will be presiding over it.
“It is the only event in the whole horological calendar that is designed specifically with the watch enthusiast in mind.”
SJX : Why should people outside of Singapore come for Tempus?
MT : Because it is the only event in the whole horological calendar that is designed specifically with the watch enthusiast in mind. You go to any other watch exhibition, even Basel, you can’t go into the booths, can’t get to see the full collection, can’t sit down and talk to the brand owners unless you have privileged access.
At Tempus, you can get right up close, you can also take part in things you won’t experience if you don’t go visit the factories; you’ll see live demonstrations, you’ll be able to have discourse with head honchos of the industry. You’ll find out what the industry trends are, what the future developments of the industry, what’s coming up, what’s going to be to the next hot topic, hot material.
You’ll see global premieres, watches never seen before, brand using tempus as a global launch platform. Richard Mille for example. He’s got this one piece he’s been working on for seven years, he deliberately held back from launching it in Geneva to launch it at Tempus. Rolf Schynyder, you saw UN [at Basel] this year, technically nothing special, wait till Tempus. Urwerk is doing a launch at Tempus. We have also got some very special one-of-a-kind pieces we’re producing with Audemars Piguet, Urwek. We have collaborations with Richard Mille, Hublot, even TAG Heuer, to do limited editions, all based on the theme of ‘All Black’. (Click here for information on the All Black Tempus Limited Edition watches.)
Hublot Bigger Bang All Black
Jaeger-LeCoultre Gyrotourbillon All Black
What we have here is a programme that will not fail to keep somebody engaged from morning to evening. More importantly it is the aggregation of all these activities, plus the congregation of all these watch enthusiast from all over the world at Tempus; it’s the comradeship, the camaraderie that we develop at Tempus amongst collectors is very critical.
“What we have here is a programme that will not fail to keep somebody engaged from morning to evening.”
SJX : If someone wants to come for Tempus, are there arrangements for hotels etc?
MT : Yes, on our website , we have somebody looking after this as well. Basically through our website you’ll be able to get details of the event. All you need to do is book your hotel. Registration for workshops and classes will be coming ups soon on the site. It will also give you details of the hotel rooms, the rates, special rates if you quote ‘The Hour Glass – Tempus’. We even have Siamnaliga, the Thai watch site, one of the members owns a travel agency, they are actually organising a special tour package for a whole group of them to come down to Singapore.
SJX : How many are you expecting?
MT : That’s a tough one. Look, we hit 50,000 the last time, hopefully we can do somewhere around there. What’s important is not so much quantitative element but the qualitative element.
SJX : During the last event, many participants including myself, found it difficult to find food or drink within the exhibition hall. For visitors who spent the whole day at the fair, that was a big drawback.
MT : Food and beverage will be taken care of. We understand that so we’re actually setting up a bar, a champagne bar from morning through evening. We heard that feedback and we are addressing it.
SJX : Thank you, Mike. I look forward to TEMPUS – The Temple of Time in September.
(More information on Tempus can be found here .)
This message has been edited by SJX on 2007-06-16 07:16:39
