As announced last week, The Luxe Chronicles will be featuring interviews with various luxury brand executives to explore the ways in which they're using social media to connect with customers. The first in this series will focus on luxury watch brand Baume & Mercier. Baume & Mercier is celebrating it's 180th anniversary this year and to mark the occasion, they have launched a truly evocative social media campaign entitled: The Most Beautiful Baume & Mercier Story is Your Own. The CEO of Baume & Mercier, Alain Zimmermann and the architects of the campaign, Stephanie Bretonniere and Helene Von Arnim, graciously accepted to discuss with me the campaign and the role social media will play going forward in their relationship to the brand's many fans and customers.
1. There has been a great deal of reluctance within the luxury industry to join the social media fray. What made Baume & Mercier take the plunge? Why now?
AZ: It was a combination of events. Baume & Mercier already had a Facebook page but up until now, we had been mostly passive observers of our community. We saw the brand's 180th anniversary as an opportune moment to become more actively involved. We were looking for a way to honor the brand's rich history and social media offered us a creative way to do this while engaging with our customers and fans of the brand in a way that was genuine and meaningful. In a way, this campaign combines Baume & Mercier's past (our history) and future (our growing online community).
SB: I don't think any luxury brand can ignore the power of social media. Up until recently, our industry had a very precise, controlled way of communicating with clients. I think the time now has come to listen and converse with them.
2. What was the genesis of the campaign? Where did the idea or concept come from?
AZ: When I arrived at Baume & Mercier in October 2009, I wanted to understand the brand's history so the first thing I did was delve into the archives. What I found was astounding, a true family saga that permeates the entire history of the brand. I've been in the luxury watch industry for fifteen years and even I discovered things about the brand that surprised me. I felt strongly that this rich history should be shared with our customers and fans of the brand.
3. Was the campaign designed exclusively in-house by Baume & Mercier or were you assisted by an outside agency?
AZ: I would describe it as very much a team effort. The architects of the campaign are Helene Von Arnim, our Internet and E-Business Manager and Stephanie Bretonniere, our International Public Relations and Communication Project Manager.
HV: Yes, we worked with our outside web agency, Details. They helped us coordinate all the technical aspects and helped us integrate the various elements of the campaign.
SB: We provided the substance such as the themes, the history of the brand and the various anecdotes we wanted to share with our customers and fans. Details provided the technical expertise.
4. What is Baume & Mercier's ultimate goal for this campaign? Do you have a specific audience in mind?
AZ: Baume & Mercier watches tend to enter the life of the owner at precise moments of their lives such as a wedding anniversary, birthday or the birth of a child. Many of our clients and other fans of the brand were already very active on Facebook and in various watch forums. They were already sharing stories and anecdotes about their watches and posting images. We wanted to give our customers an opportunity to share their stories with us and also we wanted to share the brand's stories with them. In other words, we wanted to foster the notion of community or family if you will.
5. So far, what kind of response have you received from Baume & Mercier enthusiasts?
AZ: The campaign was launched last week so it's still somewhat early to tell. Thus far, the reactions have been extremely positive. In fact, I would say that the results already surpass our expectations. To date, we have 874 fans on Facebook and 2037 followers on Twitter.
6. Are the founder's journals genuine? Do they form part of your archives or did you have to obtain them from his family?
AZ: They are indeed genuine. We found one of the journals which belonged to Louis-Victor Baume (pictured above) in our archives and we recently learned from the founder's family that there is at least one more journal that has surfaced within the family. We look forward to studying its contents closely and sharing the best anecdotes with the Baume & Mercier community. They provide valuable insights into the brand's values and traditions.
SB: The practice of keeping a daily journal was actually a tradition within the family. They were very committed to documenting the key moments of their lives and it so happens that the family's history is intertwined with the brand's.
7. One of the key aspects of your campaign is the notion of family hence the series of short videos featuring the founder's great-granddaughter, Madame Simone Gaudard. Did you have a difficult time persuading her to take part in the campaign?
AZ: We're very proud to say that Madame Gaudard has been an enthusiastic supporter of the campaign from the very start. In fact, not only did we not have to persuade her to take part but we didn't even have to explain to her what social media were - she is 82 years old. It turns out she was already on Facebook. Her son and his family live in Chicago and they communicate primarily via Facebook and Skype.
Madame Gaudard takes great pleasure in recounting her family's history and I think while she was a bit surprised at first by our invitation (she didn't think people would want to hear the stories of a grandmother), she was happy to share her memories with us. She is quite understandably very proud of her family's heritage and remains a proud supporter of the brand. We're honored that she accepted our invitation.
SB: We've had the pleasure of getting to know Madame Gaudard throughout the making of this campaign and we've been so impressed by her warmth and generosity. She is a natural storyteller and I think her spontaneity and genuineness really comes through in her video testimonials.
8. What have you learned from this first foray into social media?
HV: We've been overwhelmed by the warm reactions of our customers and fans. They're sharing their stories about how they came to own their watch and what it means to them. Since we're in the midst of the SIHH here in Geneva, we've also gotten a lot of feedback from our distributors and even journalists. They too have remarkable stories to share about the brand. Up until know, I was unaware of the extent of the respect and enthusiasm there is for Baume & Mercier. It's all very emotional, for them and for us.
9. Would you do it again? If so, are there things you would do differently?
HV: The experience has been extremely positive. In our minds, this campaign was never meant to be a "one shot" deal, far from it. This represents for us a cornerstone of our social media strategy. We want to continue cultivating our relationships with our customers and fans via this online community. This is just the first step.
SB: We want this to be an exchange, a sincere dialogue between Baume & Mercier and its fans and customers. This campaign is only the start of that conversation. We would love to see it continue to evolve.
10. Once a brand has a social media presence (Facebook page, Twitter account, etc.), it obviously requires monitoring and upkeep. What does this represent for you internally in terms of resources? Will you have a social media manager?
HV: It is something we're currently working on. We're keenly aware that now that we've entered the fray, we cannot afford to disappoint our community of customers and fans. It's important for us to have someone whose sole responsibility is to look after the community and respond quickly to questions and follow-up reliably with members of the community. In some ways, we see this as an online extension of Baume & Mercier's offline service culture which is recognized for its excellence. For us, service excellence is at its core a mark of respect towards our customers.
SB: In many respects, the challenge for us is greater now that we've assembled this online community than before. We want to continue to reach out to them and provide them with quality content and information.
Many thanks to Alain Zimmermann, Helene Von Arnim and Stephanie Bretonniere for taking time out of their hectic SIHH schedules to discuss their campaign with The Luxe Chronicles. You can learn more about Baume & Mercier by consulting their Facebook page or by following them on Twitter.
Sincerely,
The Luxe Chronicles
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