WatchPro – August 2019

COMMENT

4 WATCHPRO / AUGUST 2019 / watchpro.com

Sine qua non

I

t may be the elevation of classicist Boris Johnston to the

post of UK prime minister that nudged open the the nook

in my mind where a handful of Latin phrases are stored,

but the expression sine qua non — without this, nothing —

popped into my head while reading the wisdom of retail guru

Doug Stephens (page 27).

Doug Stephens, author of the book Reengineering Retail,

describes the importance of measuring the marketing impact

of a brick and mortar store, and not only its direct contribution

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massively to sales elsewhere thanks to the powerful branding

and story-telling it delivers. The same is true of ecommerce,

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its own right.

Continuous investment in physical and digital presence is vital in order to be a successful

retailer today. It simply cannot be ducked. And the reality is that the level of investment to

simply stand still is much, much greater than ever before.

First, brick and mortar stores have to meet the requirements of the increasingly powerful

groups. If you want to sell watches on behalf of the biggest brands at Swatch Group, LVMH,

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Despite numerous attempts to build ecommerce empires without physical stores for luxury

watches, none have come close to challenging businesses with great showrooms in A

locations.

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This is all staggeringly expensive, which is why we are seeing so many store closures from

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make the investment required by the best brands and demanded by today’s customers will

not survive. Sine qua non, I fear.

COVER PROMOTION COURTESY OF INGERSOLL

The Autumn/Winter Ingersoll campaign has been shot using Super 8 film format

and 35mm film — the original format that brought home video making to the

masses. The retro format is having a renaissance among creatives wanting to make

something a little more special and unique than the photoshopped images lacking

in sincerity that we’ve become accustomed to on social media. The Ingersoll AW

collection goes on sale in September.

Rob Corder

MANAGING EDITOR, WATCHPRO

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