Christoph Grainger-Herr, CEO of watchmaker IWC Schaffhausen, joined Haute Time for the latest edition of “Talking Time“, the industry-leading series of live webinars with the time world’s leaders and legends.
Christoph Grainger-Herr, CEO of Swiss watchmaker IWC Schaffhausen, joined Haute Time for the latest edition of “Talking Time“, the industry-leading series of live webinars with the time world's leaders and legends.
Grainger-Herr joined IWC in 2006, and has acted as Head of Trade Marketing, Head of Marketing, Executive Brand Architect, Associate Director Strategic Planning, and Associate Director Retail, as well as International Sales Director. He was appointed as CEO in April of 2017.
He was hosted by Haute Time’s Seth Semilof for a conversation on the latest news in the brand and the timekeeping world’s shift to a more digital style of marketing given the recent lockdowns.
“We have seen a huge acceleration of a process and a translation that was happening in the industry,” Grainger-Herr said, on how the watch brands from around the world have been adapting to going digital during the pandemic. “As people have increasingly gained the confidence to interact with us digitally to interact with us directly over the phone, that growth and the adoption of that way of interacting with us just accelerated hugely as people were more at home. They have plenty of time to research things online to go shopping from social media.”
He also spoke on the in-house movements developed for new pieces. “When you think about Portugieser, you see it has an 80-year plus heritage back to 1939 when we started to make wristwatches inspired by marine chronometers and the precision of tech observation watches. The new launches like the Portugieser Chronograph and Portugieser Automatic 40 come down the latest generation of in-house movements, and that is a direct consequence of all the investments we have done in manufacturing. We want to make sure that we can offer the best, most precise and most sustainably made product in the watch industry.”
On the all-digital Watches & Wonders that took place this year, “Going forward, I think we can combine what we have learned what we have learned to find the perfect medium for every occasion. What we’re seeing is that people need or are looking for a reason or effort to come to the shop. The physical bricks and mortar has to really up its game and give people a totally unique experience. So in that spirit, we recently opened our first global new flagship store in Zurich, about four weeks ago.”
IWC recently welcomed six-time Super Bowl Champion Tom Brady as Brand Ambassador. “Tom has been a good friend for a number of years. When the circumstances were right, we met. We started working together, producing content together. It’s really a partnership where it fits very well between Tom and ourselves, and we’re excited to get this fully on the road and rolling.”
Watch the webinar above, and visit www.hautetime.com to watch more editions of “Talking Time”.
