Article front page from QP Magazine.
If you're thinking of taking up a watchmaking education and if you're thinking of being Independent later on, you should read this article at QP Magazine.
You need to register to read the article but it only takes a few seconds and they don't even need to verify your email address to let you have access to the PDF file.
Anyway, one of the most important points said in the article would surely be this :-
" Today’s environment makes designing and producing components and watches easier and faster than ever. The internet and social media have made communication and marketing easier and cheaper than ever. And there are more and more independent watchmakers launching their own brands and new watches than ever. So where, you may ask, lies the difficulty? Well, being engineers at heart (watchmaking, at its base, is micro- mechanics) independent watchmakers naturally take to new production technologies more easily than new methods of communication – show a watchmaker a new CNC machine and a Facebook page and guess which one excites him the most? That leads to more independents creating their own brand, but lacking the skills to market their watches effectively using the new communication tools available. "
And this couldn't be far from the truth. This is why Henrik decided that an addition of a marketing unit is very important. Well, even if there's demand, but you need to let the buyers know that you exist.
Thank god someone has the gumption to point it out !
Other schools should do the same too ! Do you hear us ?
We're not hear to tell you what to do. We're not here to compete with you. We're here to make sure that watchmaking skills will not be lost in translation or lost to time ! But if all you do is to teach technical and assembly skills, and no one knows a thing about marketing themselves or their creations, then no one is going to sell anything much. If they don't sell enough, they will give up or just join some big manufacturer because they can't survive. End of story.
*Article extract taken from QP magazine at their website http://www.qpmagazine.com. Accessed 5th June 2011 at GMT 17:55 hrs.
No comments:
Post a Comment