An Encounter with Nayla Hayek at Baselworld 2018

Things that were very important for your work to offer greater value in terms of price positioning relative to the quality. And as you said, in particular you want to improve the quality. And it was really nice to be able to touch, for example, all these beautiful ocean watches that you've done with great gem setting and so on, and see that the quality has really improved. When you look at it, the quality stones are so luminous, the quality of the touch and feel of the cases, the quality of movements, and you're using multi movements. And many of these have we seen the full measure of what you'd like to...

You know, it's extraordinary to see this moon phase right in sapphire, and that the diamond is set inside that moon phase, and these with these tiny prongs, we should set cookie on your booth? Right, it's incredible. How did you come up with this idea? And then to be able to achieve a technical look.

Because it's like you're seeing through and you see the moon. Yes, yes. It is some years ago with the avenue questioning, there were a beautiful... Yes, I think it's amazing what you said, that although you work closely over time to push forward innovations, you're doing it in a completely different way from them, especially in terms of technique. Like with the diamonds, I remember last year we saw this beautiful perforator like that Donatella with a mother-of-pearl dial, very always very integrated chiming CBC. This is the DNA of the different brands.

Also a wonderful sort of emotional which related to timekeeping, related to retrograde mechanisms. And I think it's really lovely when you're looking at the dial, you know, this is a very strong statement that it's not about chasing time. And from a traditional perspective, it's not that you're a businessman or an astronaut, you have other brands in the group, that's for sure. It's about looking at time and having the pleasure of enjoying a moment. And you see this beautifully expressed with your retrograde seconds indicator, including in that ocean watch with the extraordinary invisible waterfall setting of the diamonds, which is a magnificent piece. But also you see this in really cool new alien watch as well that has two retrograde indicators coming from the center. That's really cool. You know, you look at it and it's all about emotion.

This is really what I love about your group, right. And you look at, I mean not to say anything, but you know there have been clearly some mistakes in the past of other groups where they go into competition with one another and they all try to make their own movements, which is totally unnecessary, incidentally, because honestly some of those brands don't need to have their own movements, you know. And actually the consumer doesn't care if they leave it to those friends. And I think what I've always admired so much about what your dad created and what you guys continue to do so well is that let's use everything in the best way possible, but let's also be intelligent so we can take advantage of the larger scale to give better value to the consumer. Yeah, yeah.

But you know, talk to me a little bit about that first transition, because that was not easy. Going from everything that was essentially outsourced as a movement, you know, to going to everything to develop to become in-house, that was probably quite a painful experience. Because I know that was a year when Mark looked really tired. And, but you have to do it, because once you clean it up, once you made it all something that was purely a Swatch Group product, then you could really start to bring the quality and the reliability play.

This is an important message also. It's like, you know, there's always people out there that have a dream to start a watch brand or whatever like that. It's one thing for you to want to impart your vision of what a watch should be. It's another thing that from the perspective of a consumer to buy that watch and then have something that's like, okay, but who do I turn to if it doesn't work right? Yeah, that's super. Yes, yes, for sure. And mostly was the expensive watches, especially, you know, especially. But even, listen, I have nothing but the greatest respect for what Ray and his team are doing at Omega, but just they're trying to improve the quality in so many ways for a watch that is like, hey, you know, let's say an accessible price, you know, and that's great also. Yeah, but I think if you buy something which you like, there should... like we all know, when you buy, of course you want to wear it and it should work. Because it doesn't matter how beautiful it is, the moment it breaks and it frustrates you, you're not gonna love it anymore, man. It's like to party. Yeah, yes, yes. If you buy a smartwatch, you want to use it, you know, about exactly. And there's no reason why you should have to compromise, right? There's no reason why you can't have something that's stunning but at the same time you can rely on completely. You know, the worst thing is sometimes people invest in these very expensive watches from whoever and those small little brands or independents, and then it breaks down once or twice or even three times, and then that person, it actually affects this whole perception of watches in general. Yeah, and that's dangerous, yes.

I'm sorry, said I think I do have to do you guys some questions. You want to know, I just wants to because I was reminded by the candy on the table. I think they're quite fun that we saw this year, which is the, you know, the kind of enemy can do or is something very beautiful. And also I think we saw something new in terms of the adventure in color at the church other countries, I don't think like as well. So you here to here is you can have full emotional enjoyment of a watch today along with full satisfaction in terms of its reliability. And I think that's what's amazing about what this group and what their brands achieves and what Madam Hayek and everyone here does. You know, whether it's the most excessively priced watch, you know, I think I bought maybe five Omegas in the last, you know, year, and every single one of them works perfectly, right? And that's all you want, exactly. And I don't baby them, I go jogging, I go to spin class, I put them on all the time, you know. And that's the thing, it's like, you know, everyone wants to have a watch brand, right? That's fine, because you want to have a watch brand, that's okay. But think about us a consumer, we need to have a satisfaction in terms of the watches that we know they're going to work, and that's what you guys do so well. Yeah.