Quote:
Originally Posted by Fleetlord
If you wanted to make Panerai a "hype" brand again, then this I what I think should be done.
1) Stop or drastically limit production..that's right...go as far as stopping production. This is what Ray-Ban did for one year when Luxottica acquired them to clean things up.
They would have to make the market miss them. Create a longing. A void to be filled.
2) Cut Doors. Too many customerless boutiques and dealer displays with dusty Panerai's in them. Every single time I go to a Panerai boutique, I am the only customer. I have personally seen DUST on Panerai's in a major AD display. The watches have sat untouched for so long they have DUST on them. Awful... AP, ROLEX, PATEK do this religiously and seem to be accelerating their culling of dealers as their demand INCREASES. The usual thought is "we are popular, let's give them MORE"....well that doesn't work with luxury goods.
3) Reset the product line. There are too many models and too many built of each model. Most of the new smaller models reek of "me too" appeasement. Panerai was never about appeasing the masses. It was about individualism and expression of that individualism.
4) Pricing. High Retail combined with low value retention is NOT what the luxury market craves. I fully understand how angry that makes the WIS community, but it's VERY important to the general public buyer (and I have seen so on TRF via poll numbers).
Call a dealer about selling or trading a Pam. It's usually a HARD PASS, except for the most desirable models. Those are bad vital signs for the health of the brand, whether the WIS likes it or not. Panerai needs to get the pricing in line. It's too high.
5) Re release the pared down offerings with better pricing and less doors. The market will go crazy and hype will be back again! That's if you want that..
|
Strongly agree. I authored a post below without reading yours first. I agree with most of what you are saying and elaborated a little on some of your points. I think the most important thing Panerai could do among their "regular" production or entry level or whatever you want to call it core line is to simplify. There's just too much out there right now.
The Luminor line should be mostly 44mm models consistent with the pre-V offerings/cases. Base models, black dials, rare option for DLC case or white dial. Radiomirs should run 45-47mm and follow a similar pattern. Rare options for California/SLC dial. The Luminor 1950 and Radiomir 1940 models will be your larger cases. Clearly historically inspired like the 372. Offer 44mm "modern" Luminor 1950 automatic models like we have now with maybe 5-6 configurations and complications present (GMT, power reserve, etc). Then Panerai can build and experiment off of that with novel materials, limited production, etc. I think the Submersible line is probably fine as it is, but it would be nice to get more wearable 44mm models like the 024/025 back. Once again, pair down the number of offerings to 5-6.