Roland-Garros tournament in May-June, Tour de France in July, Rugby World Cup from September, Summer Olympics in 2024… For watch brands, the sports competitions organized in France represent a golden opportunity to communicate, especially when they select their muses from among the headliners of one of these disciplines.
This is particularly the case of Hublot, which counts among its ambassadors the athlete Usain Bolt, the footballer Kylian Mbappé and a few other sportsmen “friends of the brand”. Breitling, for its part, prefers to use the Anglicism “squad” to designate the team of its partners: rugby player Gaël Fickou, footballer Erling Haaland or basketball player Giannis Antetokounmpo. “Luxury houses generally choose sportsmen with charismatic resonance, who appear exemplary and endowed with a strong personality”, remarks Stéphane Truchi, chairman of the management board of the Ifop group and sociologist of luxury. To promote public identification, the muse must, as much as possible, embody the brand and correspond to its values. The discipline practiced is also not associated by chance with the watch model chosen.
Iconic personalities
Sometimes these partnerships go beyond sports. Blancpain ambassador, Laurent Ballesta is not a professional diver like the others. This naturalist biologist has made underwater photography a tool to share his research and raise public awareness of the ecological cause. As do the explorers Mike Horn and Borge Ousland, supported respectively by Panerai and Ulysse Nardin.
On the side of the brand with the crown, there is no question of ambassadors, but of “Rolex Testimonials”, whose most emblematic representative is none other than the tennis player Roger Federer. Rolex has been surfing for more than fifteen years on the image of this respected personality imbued with elegance.
Same loyalty between Richard Mille and Rafael Nadal, who… didn’t wear a watch before their meeting in 2008. Neither in town, let alone on the court. The stroke of genius of the French industrialist was to convince the King of Roland-Garros to dress his wrist – including, and above all, during matches – with an ultra-light model, equipped with a tourbillon movement, yet renowned for its fragility. The fact that this watch resists the power of the Mallorcan game, subjected to impressive accelerations, has enabled the general public to discover one of the facets of Swiss fine watchmaking. “When the collaboration results in the co-creation of a product, the approach between the muse and the brand becomes fusional”, explains Stéphane Truchi. Even after Rafael Nadal retires, the company will continue to support him, Richard Mille told us. Because this type of commitment is part of a long time, linked to the notoriety of a champion and his visibility, which does not necessarily die out at the same time as his career.
Performance, success, emotion
According to Stéphane Truchi, the solidity of the links between watch brands and top athletes can be explained by five factors. First of all, these partners have in common the search for high performance. Then, this quest is part of a requirement for temporal precision.
On the other hand, “the statutory value of the brand also corresponds to the desire to express a certain social ascent of the top athlete”, notes the luxury expert. He also insists on the notion of emotion, inherent in the enjoyment of victory and which is also associated with the desire to afford a luxury item.
Finally, the last dimension, and not the least, results from the writing of a common story: the athlete and the brand know full well that each of their actions represents a way of interfering in the legend that one and the others seek to build. Like a rewarding mirror effect.