YOU Decide: The NEW Modern Holy Trinity

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Originally Posted by charger_vital

I could not agree more. I have been looking at Parmagiani for a while now. I've tried on a couple of pieces as well... They are unbelievable.

What is crazy to me is that they hit all the marks collectors usually care about: finishing (top of the line), in-house manufacturing (these guys are "in-house" all the way down to manufacturing their own screws! They may be more "in-house" than any other brand actually), and independence. But nobody talks about them... Why?

Their marketing is not great since they don't sponsor major events (except for Hot Air Ballooning), they don's have "icons" and they typically aren't found in print ads. Then again... perhaps the fact that they abscond from that stuff, is indeed what makes them great.

I've heard that they have historically run at a loss, and they've never been profitable. Is that true?

Parmigiani is a wonderful restaurator, but the effort to iterate that into a brand with a bunch of Sandoz money was too artificial to hit a chord with the public.

I’m also not sure I agree on the top of the line finishing. They are good, but like Moser or AP, lots of CNC machines are involved at Vaucher where others would have people sitting at benches.

Marketing and positioning is also desperately misguided so far, which obviously isn’t great when we’re talking about aspirational objects.

To make a brand successful, you have to attach desirable attributes to the products that go beyond the quality and execution of the product itself.

If I wear that new FPJ I just got, I’m not just a guy with a nicely made gold watch, if I wear that watch, I wear an FPJ. I get to show the world that I’m sophisticated enough to « get it », that I have what it takes to see value in it and ultimately that I can afford it.

When I wear a Parmigiani, what is it that I’m getting? What have I afforded? The 30% discount? Why am I sophisticated? And how sophisticated am I?

All of those questions are questions that a successful brand would have provided ample answers to. Not so Parmigiani. At least not yet. And I really hope they do, visited the manufacture a few years ago and there definitely is something there they could build on. They just seemingly don’t want to.