It is certainly not presumptuous to say, and should not alienate any watch lover, that a brand that likes to call its watch models Big Bang or King Power, is a partner of Formula 1 and FC Bayern Munich, and whose fans are Kobe Bryant and Jay Z, does not necessarily build the right watches for quiet people and wallflowers. Anyone who wears Hublot draws on the full, knows that we all only live once and wants to show their exuberant energy visibly on the street. Just like the charismatic marketing genius Jean-Claude Biver, CEO of Hublot Replica since 2004 until he passed the baton to his long-time companion Ricardo Guadalupe in 2012. Biver pushed the company from the quiet fringes of the watch world back onto the stage – where it is today. In the spotlight of the industry, as a rapidly rising star that opened twenty of its own boutiques around the globe every year at the time of its greatest growth. Then as now, Hublot is one of the top watch brands internationally.
I got 99 Problems, but this watch ain’t one
The brand maintains a manageable number of models with great recognition value, most notably the brand’s big bang and the initial spark for Hublot’s meteoric rise: the Big Bang, introduced in 2005. It is the most famous flagship from the Swiss manufacturer and the stroke of genius of Jean-Claude Biver, who made himself immortal in the watch world as a product manager and marketing man with this model. It should not be forgotten: Hublot existed before Biver. But no one had been interested in it for a long time, and sales continued to ebb. Without Biver, the company might have run aground by now.
Hublot State of Mind
The founder of Hublot – Carlo Crocco – had been working on his watch factory since 1975 and called the watches “Marie-Daniel-Montre” – MDM – after his wife’s name. He had already developed the design principles that are still unmistakably Hublot today. Crocco had been working with both the rubber straps and the porthole element since the late 1970s. When he first presented his development at the Basel Watch Fair – today’s “Baselworld” – in 1980, he named the company “Hublot” (porthole in French) after the characteristic look of his watches. But by the time watch enthusiast Biver and his groundbreaking ideas came on board at Hublot in 2004, things had gone very quiet for the brand. It had long since stopped inspiring people, but it had great potential, which Biver also recognized.
We have to keep giving collectors and watch enthusiasts new reasons to buy another Hublot or at least to think about it. Our design is so clear and iconic that if we don’t offer variants and special editions, customers will eventually get bored. They already have a Hublot and maybe they’ll put it in the closet. But we want to be worn! Once a watch has left the wrist, it may never come back. We can’t allow that to happen. That’s why we’re always developing new reasons to love our brand and to engage with it,”