With almost 30 years of expertise at his disposal, Jeffery Cohen is the individual accountable for working Citizen and its group of watch manufacturers within the US because the President of Citizen Watches America. What I’ve discovered to be distinctive at Citizen (when in comparison with different foreign-owned timepiece makers) is the extent of autonomy in administration and decision-making that the USA workplace has loved. Which means regardless that the Citizen Group is a Japanese firm, its American subsidiary calls the pictures on U.S. soil. That has given Citizen Group — at the moment headquartered in New York Metropolis’s Empire State Constructing — a particular market benefit, traditionally. Immediately, the Citizen Group of manufacturers in the USA contains Citizen, Bulova, Accutron, Alpina, and Frederique Fixed.
Just lately, the Citizen Group within the U.S. issued a press launch about upcoming firm reorganization efforts and a shifting of market priorities. I took this chance to attach with Mr. Cohen, who kindly provided to talk with aBlogtoWatch about what he has in thoughts for Citizen and its group of manufacturers in America, and the way a legacy firm like Citizen is adapting to a quickly altering world.
To set the stage, I requested Mr. Cohen to explain what the watch retail market as soon as regarded like in the USA, after which to share how precisely the market immediately is totally different. Whereas market tastes and preferences have all the time modified, Cohen pointed to adjustments in how customers study and subsequently purchase watches as being the largest variations. Traditionally, an organization like Citizen put its efforts into promoting merchandise by way of wholesale to robust retailers who would undertake the hassle of each advertising and marketing and promoting to customers. All of that has modified immediately.
Customers are now not counting on retailers to inform them about new merchandise or to assist information them as to which merchandise to purchase. Retailers, like customers, are additionally changing into more and more area of interest, 0ffering robust relationships in some curiosity areas however few of which actually symbolize the bigger breadth of all attainable pursuits. Firms like Citizen have traditionally deliberate out bigger product and messaging campaigns that might be rolled out over giant areas or for a big group of customers. Today watch model resolution making must be extra “laser-focused,” as Cohen places it.
One of many greatest shifts at Citizen seems to be a refocusing on inside efforts, from supporting retailers to partaking with customers. Citizen is in no way abandoning its conventional retail companions, however its relationship with them is altering, as represented by the altering worth these retailers convey them. Briefly, Citizen (like different good actors within the watch trade) is transferring to a mannequin whereby its efforts are designed to make customers glad, versus retailers (corresponding to jewelers). The implication is that glad customers inspire themselves to find retailers who promote what they’re in search of, versus the extra historic mannequin of studying about what they need to purchase from a retailer.
Cohen additionally factors to the shortly evolving position that timepieces play within the lives of customers today. Previously, watches have been passive instruments on the wrist that complement one’s character and tastes. Immediately, watches could be vividly extra expressive and in have taken on new types of social and tribal identification on behalf of the wearer. In response to Cohen, the implication of that is that Citizen and its manufacturers must do extra than simply talk to customers that it has new merchandise; it should assign genuine that means and values to these timepieces. Cohen makes it clear that the Citizen Group of immediately is devoted to having a two-way dialog with customers.
What does Citizen need to know from the people who find themselves thinking about and who purchase its merchandise? Immediately is about making data-backed choices, in keeping with Cohen. The skilled watch trade insider would by no means surrender his or her honed instinct, however his remarks are telling as a result of, for essentially the most half, the watch trade has traditionally made top-down choices about market route and focus. Market information — offered it’s captured and analyzed accurately — has been instrumental to quite a lot of companies faring higher with regards to producing not solely merchandise that customers need, but in addition to the customers a model really has. Citizen’s purpose isn’t nearly listening to its customers’ preferences about what watches they need, however extra importantly, it’s about figuring out what its followers and customers care about within the first place.
Even earlier than the present market challenges associated to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Citizen Group was effectively underway with a collection of deliberate adjustments and strategic shifts. Along with diversifying from principally specializing in relationships with retail companions, the Citizen Group has decided that relationships with customers have modified over the past a number of years. In response to Cohen, whereas timepiece manufacturers may extra traditionally depend on shopper loyalty, today customers transfer freely from model to model as tastes and pursuits can typically shift wildly from buy to buy. To higher correspond with the present expertise of being a well-connected savvy shopper, Citizen and its manufacturers will embark on a brand new period of relationship- and sentiment-building with customers.
This can be a difficult proposition as a result of, on the finish of the day, Citizen and its manufacturers usually are not vogue homes however engineering companies devoted to the proposition that the wristwatch, as a instrument, can proceed to get higher and higher. What watch manufacturers have discovered, nonetheless, is that the quantity of accessible “also-good” merchandise out there implies that individuals thinking about shopping for watches have a tougher time than ever in selecting. To fight this, Cohen has undertaken the hassle to align his manufacturers with cultural fixtures related to celebration and optimistic emotions. Two splendid examples are Citizen’s tight partnership with Disney and Bulova’s ongoing relationship with the Grammy Awards. For Cohen, connecting with these establishments isn’t merely about getting the model title on the market, but in addition in connecting with customers when their moods are at peak positivity.
Citizen and its manufacturers may also be talking extra on to the customers they’re specializing in. More and more uncommon might be generic institutional messaging campaigns and promoting, changed by extra niche-targeted messages to explicit teams. Mr. Cohen desires Citizen, Bulova, and the opposite manufacturers to have extra significant relationships with their followers, and meaning each understanding the followers posing related statements to them. Right here once more, we see Cohen’s “all the things is now digital” strategy, whereby Citizen can get to know its followers by way of on-line information after which be in the very best place to talk to these followers with messages catering to them. That is precisely what has served area of interest watchmakers so effectively and, lastly, we’re seeing a return to the large names in timepieces making the marketing-intelligence investments they should carry their manufacturers into the following period.
Cohen jogs my memory that Bulova has been constantly working in the USA for about 145 years. Immediately, Bulova has a crew of designers in New York Metropolis imagining the following era of Bulova watches completely from scratch. Bulova timepieces, particularly, might be an instance of how Citizen is tailoring all the things from the design of the watch, the promoting of the watch, to the place the watch is offered, to the preferences of Bulova’s identified shopper base (and other people like them).
Citizen Group’s subsequent main initiative in America would be the full roll-out of the Accutron model. Beforehand a group below the Bulova title, Accutron will now launch as its personal model that includes the world’s first-ever electrostatic powered motion. Cohen remarks that the Citizen Group spent almost a decade creating the expertise and that the Accutron model might be not like the rest within the present model portfolio. The idea for collectors is doubtlessly thrilling. Accutron was the title related to the primary tuning fork-controlled digital timepieces and was initially launched round 1960. It was essentially the most correct wristwatch available on the market till it was supplanted by quartz-regulated digital watches a few decade later.
The brand new Accutron won’t see a return to turning fork expertise, however it would provide the wristwatch shopper one thing new, in addition to visually assertive. That final half, for Cohen, appears to be necessary as a result of he is aware of higher than anybody how wristwatches make the very best dialog items. Whereas not an precise piece of Accutron historical past, the attraction of the watch was memorialized in an episode of the tv drama Mad Males about promoting professionals in New York through the late 1950s and early 1960s. Hopefully, Accutron will seize the hearts and minds of a brand new era of timepiece fanatics immediately.
Citizen and its manufacturers have their work minimize out for them each globally and in the USA given the equal must deal with product innovation and advertising and marketing relevancy. That is additionally at a time when mainstream watch gross sales are down given the present financial atmosphere in addition to the dearth of conventional gross sales quantity, which corporations like Citizen may one depend on from America’s then-powerful department shops and malls.
My guess is that whereas Japan is in command of R&D and manufacturing, it’s the USA workplace that seems to be setting a lot of the tone for the manufacturers’ relationship with customers — as the USA continues to be an important market on this planet for the Citizen Group of manufacturers. Inside that sphere, Citizen and Bulova are the highest two manufacturers, respectively. As I discussed above, Citizen is additional distinctive for having People in command of their American enterprise. This could be an odd factor for these not aware of the watch trade to learn, however the actuality is that the overwhelming majority of foreign-owned watchmakers working in the USA have (no less than for my part) skewed too far-off from the American mentality by appointing non-natives to essential administration roles.
Citizen is clearly investing closely, and an inside reorganization is a logical results of that reality as the corporate shifts to being extra consumer- versus retailer-focused, whereas regularly asking itself, “What timepieces does the market need to see from us?” Cohen made it clear that Citizen would proceed to hunt out holes out there that it will possibly fill with its explicit model of revolutionary product improvement and skill to provide emotionally satisfying experiences.
Whereas the rapid future bears a number of unknowns, Cohen has confidence within the enduring attraction of what Citizen Group does greatest: make watches for normal individuals — therefore, the “Citizen” title (which is precisely why its founders in Japan selected it). Cohen brings not solely his honed expertise as a watch trade supervisor to the issues we face immediately and can face tomorrow but in addition the knowledge to know that success might be derived by making the suitable product, which is then successfully shared with the suitable group. This, to him, is “precision advertising and marketing with personalised messaging.”
Cohen lastly reminds aBlogtoWatch that he desires the watch shopper to stay in suspense. “I need individuals to be stunned,” he says, when studying about new Citizen Group merchandise. Utilizing information acquired from shopper exercise and sentiment on-line is efficacious, nevertheless it doesn’t typically let you know what customers will like that they’ve by no means seen earlier than. That’s nonetheless the place the magic of creativity is available in, and why not simply anybody can do what an organization like Citizen can. Cohen summed his technique up properly as, “Know the buyer, and you understand the market.” Be taught extra about Citizen watches right here, and study extra about Bulova watches right here.
