Football, regatta, diving, formula 1… Tudor, the sponsorship strategy

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Football, tennis, rugby, formula 1, cycling, sailing, golf … The list is long of sponsorships knotted by horlogers, as sport embodies “The central element of world pop culture”it is said at Tudor. In the effervescence of contracts, money and sweat, it is still necessary to stand out, as the Swiss brand has undertaken eight years ago. Nicknamed Rolex’s “little sister”, Tudor (born in 1946) has long suffered from the comparison with her elder. In 2017, everything changes with a slogan: “Born to Dare” (“born to dare”). A “signature” which is also “A state of mind, aimed at asserting [leur] difference “, explains one of the officials of the Locle factory.

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This “Born to Dare” is reflected in the choice of allying with demanding sports (cycling, rugby, surfing …), which tell the stories of oneself, far from the more elitist grounds where Rolex has already planted his flag (tennis, golf, sail). According to competitions where athletes roll in the rain, plunge into the mud or descend 30 meters waves, the idea is to illustrate the reliability of Tudor timepieces … while valuing the human aspect by “authentic” collaborations.

“Sincere commitment”

Concretely, what does that mean? That should not be told about Blabla, tells us in substance Rafaël Binggeli, the director of the Swiss agency Sponsorize, who helps companies, especially watchmaking, to build their marketing strategies. “When a brand arrives in an environment that is not its, in order to reach an audience that is not there for it, how does it make itself legitimate? By a sincere commitment. »» That it seems outdated, the time of “visibility sponsorship”, where it was enough to put your logo on a stadium to make young and dynamic! The public, nourished with advertising codes, knows how to decipher. And he is used to being courted.

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For Tudor, the “Born to Dare” is embodied by “ambassadors” as recognized … only in their kind. Like the male and female teams of New Zealand rugby (the legendary All Blacks), but also the footballer David Beckham or the surfer Nic von Rupp. Each time, long -term contracts, in areas not necessarily « bankables » right away. When Beckham created ex nihilo his football team in Florida, you had to believe it; Inter Miami and its pink jerseys are now a hit. When Tudor sponsors a cycling team, the latter begins in the second division and climbed the steps little by little, so that the Tudor Pro Cycling Team continues the results and has just signed the French Julian Alaphilippe.

In addition to the already mentioned sports, the watchmaking house has invested in the regatta, the diving, the rally and the formula 1 (the latter “Due to technological innovation”). The risk of dispersion? Rafaël Binggeli thinks the opposite: “This is the image of today’s tastes: you can like surfing, football and cycling. And this follows the general trend of creating a lifestyle environment around its brand. »» A trend that reports, we recognize at Tudor, the brand having gained notoriety and attracted new customers in its match against competition.