Time bound

PASSING THROUGH: Jack W Heuer

Jack W Heuer

Who better than Jack Heuer to play custodian to Tag Heuer's brand history and heritage?

Great-grandson of Edouard Heuer, who founded the watchmaking company in 1860 (then called just Heuer), Jack Heuer has seen the company through two significant acquisitions and its subsequent growth from a family-owned business into a global luxury brand.

He's in India to share some of that history, ironically with Tag Heuer's leading Chinese retailers visiting India. While India has just over 60 points of sale for the brand, China has over 100. "If only India had the benefit of China's retail infrastructure..." he says.

But far more pleasant for him is the brand's second year of association with Indian polo. His father was a competitive horse racer, and he grew up around horses. "Plus, the earliest version of the chronograph was made for timing horse racing," he adds.

The Swiss watchmakers, currently owned by luxury stable LVMH under the aegis of it's watch and jewellery division, are known for their high-end sports application watches and chronographs.

Sales figures put them as the world's fourth largest watch producers. The brand has always been engaged with sports, including as official timekeepers at Formula One.

"People didn't realised when we stopped after 12 years," he laughs. Today, they're associated with sailing to skiing and golf. "We make sure we sponsor at least four golf events in India each year," says Heuer.

Don't make the mistake of suggesting that for the longest time Tag Heuer was known better for its marketing success and not so much for its engineering.

Heuer rejects that sentiment wholeheartedly, launching into a list of the brand's greatest technical breakthroughs "" the first chronograph measuring 100ths of a second in 1916, the first Swiss watchmaker to go into space, the first Microtimer at 1/1000th of a second in 1966, the latest Monaco V4 concept watch (driven by belts and not gears).

"We were instrumental in revolutionising the world of precise time keeping. It was only when Tag acquired us in 1985 that they felt a brand was all about its marketing."

It was the brand's acquisition by LVMH in 1999 when the focus shifted back to technical innovation. "They realised the true value of a luxury product lay in it's brand heritage."

Still, the brand's recent marketing successes haven't gone unnoticed. Signing on Tiger Woods in 2003 was a marketing coup of sorts.

"Together we designed the first professional golf watch. But more importantly he opened up a new elite audience to the virtues of owning a Tag," says Heuer.

Desi ambassador Shah Rukh Khan hasn't done too badly; the brand has been using him to promote the new Monaco 69 (which has an mechanical time-of-day watch, and also a digital timer accurate to 1/1000th of a second) in some South-east Asian and Middle East geographies, and Heuer claims the strategy is working well.

But it's winter back home, and Heuer, an electronics engineer by education and skiier by passion, is looking forward to spending time with the family in their mountain lodge.

He indicates that he will retreat from "official responsibility" once he concludes his efforts towards the unveiling of the Tag Heuer museum at La Chaux-de-Fondes in Switzerland next year and the celebration of the brand's 150th anniversary in three years.

He gives no indication of when he will be in India next, not even for the opening of the 100th point of sale, scheduled for 2008. "I am growing older," he explains. After years of perfecting precision in timekeeping, Jack Heuer perhaps could do with slowing down.