Girard Perregaux

Friends, Marc Michel-Amadry (MMA), the Managing Director (MD) of Girard-Perregaux came over to our house in Singapore for dinner last night. It was a pleasure to meet him with my family in a casual environment.















My mother prepared local delights which we were thrilled to see he enjoyed. Otak Otak (grilled fish cakes wrapped in banana leaves, nasi lemak (coconut rice) and more). Who knew that MMA would love chilli so much. 😃 MMA kindly brought us some honey from the bee hives in front of the GP Museum. The hives are managed by hobbyist beekeepers who are also GP Master watch makers 🐝. My mother and wife loved the flowers and MMA knew of my adoration of the Laureato 8010 and brought me two posters from the launch in 1995. After dinner and dessert, we chatted until midnight about watches and the collector mindset. He made is clear that collectors would be the primary focus for GP. Everything must rotate around the collector. MMA is well aware and supportive of our FB fanclub group. He is appreciative of our passion. 👏 So out came my own GP collection and it was fun to talk about the history of each model. Though it was our first meeting, we chatted with the comfort shared of old friends. (We are both 56, Catholic, love GP and named Marc. His wife and mine are also the same age. Oh and we are both bald 🥚) 😃 I tried on the prototypes of the 41 mm 3-golden bridges Laureato as well as the 46 mm new minute repeater. How lovely to see, feel and hear the product of such expertise in these mechanical marvels. There will be some very interesting releases over the next few months. It is going to be exciting. 🤐 His car came to whisk him back to his hotel just past midnight and he leaves Singapore for Switzerland tonight. Stay tuned ... 🤝

For all parties involved. Your mother sounds like she has some serious skills on the kitchen. I watch brand that takes seriously its consumer base - that’s foundational!

Yes, good food and nice conversation about watches. Priceless.
The GP minute repeater that MMA brought alone is CHF 530,000 ...
So we all were careful around it. 😅

Your dedication and loyalty to the brand is not going unnoticed in higher places Marc.
Wonderful post from a wonderful evening. Enjoy! 

So dinner at my house was a lot more fun for everyone.

Tell me please, Marc, what exactly do you mean saying that collectors would be the primary focus for GP? Any practical ideas? Thanks in advance.

And I don't have a answer answer yet to write out.
But I shared this one point with MMA that I will share here as well.
He was in town for a GP event organized by THG the Authorized dealer.
The majority of the GP collectors in Singapore that I knew were not invited. I too wws not invited.
I said to MMA, the fastest way to disintermediate with a fan is to come to the country, throw a party (AD party), do NOT invite many existing collectors and then post what a great party it was on social media.
This is not being collector centric.
This is leaving it all to the AD that is only interested in sales and new prospects.
This seemed to hit home ... MMA will need to engage with current collectors/owners of GP.
Your thoughts?
🤝

The aim of the marketing budget is to increase sales. As such, cos aim for recent buyers who are easy to be persuaded to buy again. Whoever has bought smth long time ago or on secondary market (often that would be us - collectors) is usually out of the scope of invitations. May be with a few exceptions - bloggers, opinion leaders, etc, but not collectors.

Another point - I proudly own a few complicated watches from JP. All are limited edition tourbillons made and sold about 20 years ago. These are not daily beaters so they look and function as good as new ones and it is easy to find more watches like that on the market. Unless some potential buyer is absolutely allergic to buying pre-owned I cannot see how JP can sell complicated pieces at 3-4x of what not too different ones trade pre-owned. Have you touched on this question in your conversation?
Thx.
Semyon.

But the current approach is not effective.

I see marketing budgets as being both sales focussed as well as engagement focussed (brand value).

It's the same as in my accounting or software business. Even after clients have engaged our services, we still keep in touch beyond the said services. We meet for lunch and just check in on them. This means that we also hear of potential morr business from them.

We see other brands like IWC that have an active community with meet ups. And this is effective indirectly towards sales and even client retention.

GP is totally dead in this area. This is why I formed the GP Laureato Fanclub FB group and we now have 3,500 people in the group.

As existing customers of GP, we may not be buying many new watches. But we certainly can influence potential new customers with their decisions via forum posts abd and general impression of the brand.

If we are not engaged, we may not be bothered to post or influence others.

Also, I do not see it as an either or situation. Let the ADs continue their white tablecloth dinners. But when GP folks are down from Switzerland, they can also organize another informal pizza and beer event where they invite existing clients. They have our contact details. And local chapters can help organize or even host. I while be more than happy to have 20-30 collectors come by the house for a meet and greet session with the GP folks from Switzerland.

As for pre-owned, I totally agree with you. But there are akso many who do not buy pre-owned. So GP new, would be all that they consider. The pre-owned value are so much lower than current MSRP and this may change in the long-term if GP starts a CPO business.

These things need to be discussed in greater detail but in essence, a 360 degree approach towards collectors needs to be taken.

The biggest hurdle right now are the ADs that bundle GP in order for a customer to get a FPJ at retail. These leads to the GP beint dumped to the secondary market brand new at artificially low prices.

I have spoken out extensively about how toxic the bundling practices are by these ADs. It destroys brand value.

Thoughts?

Best,

Marc

hope your conversation has planted some seeds.

I think more conversations needed. But it's a start...

What an experience it must have been. That laureato is incredible!

that love GP.
I'm a pretty casual guy and I like a non pretentious environment.
MMA is also pretty chill so it was good chemistry.
My mother, wife and sister would go in to do somethings and come back out to the patio and say...You guys still talking about watches?? 🤣

Your passion for GP is infectious! If I stand too close I may catch the bug

Helps boost the immune system against mainstream hype watches.

I shared what I think and MMA listened.
There are some gaps that will need to be filled. Getting into the "collector mindset$ is going to be key to it all.

MMA was also very interested to see my Neo vintage GP collection.
I think we were both mutually impresses with what we both brought to the table. (Literally)
☺

I couldn’t be more happy for you, Marc.
Best, Emmanuel