All this proves is that LVMH doesn't understand the brand.
This move will alienate the current clientele without drawing a new set of loyalists. Already, it's difficult to see how a high-volume Zenith is anything but duplicative of TAG Heuer, a brand that already serves the market for mid-level sport watches and does so with outsourced content. TAG is established as precisely what this article proposes Zenith should become. If I'm Joe Everyday looking for an entry-level premium watch and I see a TAG I've heard of and comparably-priced a watch named after a TV brand, I'm buying the TAG unless the Zenith comes with a huge discount. Why fight that battle when each brand already serves a purpose?
It's one thing to shuffle parts within the same family of brands; that's
the Lexus/Toyota relationship, and it works as long as each product
meets expectations and serves a different market. It's another thing
entirely to have redundant brands selling undifferentiated product to the same target customer. That's bankruptcy-era GM.
Swatch and Richemon't success comes from offering different brands with different identities, different levels of spec and finish, and different clienteles. It's all well and good to say that Zenith is missing the "meat of the market," but I don't see comparable brands like JLC and AP rushing to eviscerate themselves for the sake of higher volume. Between Tissot, Longines, TAG, Hamilton, Tudor, Seiko, and many, many more, Bubba's already got plenty of options to keep him busy. Richemont isn't commanding VC and Lange to go after Breitling even though we know Breitling outsells them both. Blancpain executives don't lose sleep over what SevenFriday is doing.
Oddly, I don't see this as Biver's doing. He's a showman, certainly, but he invested pretty heavily in exclusive content with Blancpain, Omega, and Hublot. He practically bought BNB Concept lock, stock, and barrel when it went under so Hublot could have the tooling, personnel, and patents to build its complications. And he appointed Dufour to Zenith in 2009. While I have no doubt that Biver's fingerprints are all over the regrettable Rolling Stones sponsorship, I'm not so sure that decontenting Zenith products is his project. More likely, there's an LVMH careerist in the mix, one who may not be a watch industry life.
Best,
Tim