Officine Panerai

destrodan
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Yes, I read it when the article came out.

Well-written at that. And I can understand such a visceral reaction from someone reading it. 

We probably all agree that Panerai has to rein in their marketing department as they are destroying part of the brand's value. These are unforced errors, and they've made multiple similar errors over the years.

That said, the reality is that these watch companies have their hidden stories and myth-making departments. And they're mostly geared to match our fickle consumer fads in order to sell more watches. 

One example: Remember when JLC produced their own "certification program" for their watches? Many people (including me) laughed at their marketing department...but then Patek dropped the Geneva Seal so they could mark their own movements with their own PP "seal". Yes the standards of the Geneva Seal needed updating at the time, but producing your own "quality" seal? What a circular closed loop of inanity. Give me a break. So now Vacheron and others are calling Patek's bluff by using the updated Geneva Seal instead of an internal seal. We'll see over time if the market ends up preferring the Geneva Seal to internal seals. 

Another example: Not that long ago, folks generally didn't have access to cameras that could capture the difference between hand-produced anglage and machine-produced anglage. So many of the high-end watch companies went with low-cost machine finishing for their lower to middle tier watches (hand-finishing is expensive). Now our iphones with an attached plastic optic can highlight the (relative) ugliness of machine-produced anglage when seen under such an intense focus. So now folks complain about the period of time that Patek and others used (use) machine-produced anglage and we now worship at the alter of hand-produced anglage. Does it really make the watch any better? Not in my world, even though I can appreciate well-executed anglage. Do you get a sense of wack-a-mole yet when it comes to what the fickle consumers want each year versus what is provided by our favorite watch brands and how they pivot as needed?

Another example: for the past 15 or so years, we worship at the alter of vertical integration, whether of a mid-sized independent company or small independent. But go back 20 years and this was a silly proposition. Almost all watch companies (with the possible exception of Seiko and a few others), including even Rolex, were outsourcing important components of their production to specialists. And rightly so to ensure quality. But then we fickle consumers were sold a story about "vertical integration" being important. Including a story about how a watch company needs to make their own movements (even as actual performance, and future serviceability options, diminish - the performance of movements from FP Journe and Roger Dubuis are good examples of this when compared with the humble ETA 2892 - but what do we expect when the examples of such limited movement production haven't worked out all of the kinks)...

...so here we are...slaying myths and marketing giants.

Again, Panerai had better get their marketing act together because the example given is egregious. And I'm sure they're paying a price as the various fora are having a field day with them. But they are hardly alone about not being truthful concerning meaningless "vertical integration".

This is my personal opinion on the matter after decades of collecting. And I stand by my comment that brands under the umbrella of Swatch and Richemont will, with very high probability, outlast most independent brands. 

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