A conversation with Ricardo Guadalupe, CEO at Hublot

The 2nd installment of the ROX Magazine Podcast, sees Kyron Keogh, Managing Director of ROX, chatting to long-term brand partner and friend Ricardo Guadalupe, CEO of Hublot. They discuss how the business has adapted during the pandemic and how the Art of Fusion is key to the core DNA of the brand.  They catch up on Hublot’s newest product releases at LVMH Watch Week including their collaboration with global art superstar Takashi Murakami and why Ricardo thinks the Hublot Big Bang Integral holds an exciting future for the global brand right now.   

Transcript

Kyron Keogh: Hi Ricrado.

Ricardo Guadalupe: Hello.

Kyron Keogh: How are you?

Ricardo Guadalupe: Good and you?

Kyron Keogh: It’s lovely to see you. It’s lovely to see your face after all this time.

Ricardo Guadalupe: Happy birthday!

Kyron Keogh: Thank you, Ricardo. I had a lovely couple of days last week. It wasn’t what I expected for my 50th in lockdown but I had a nice few days with the family and drank lots of champagne and thank you for your kind words.

Ricardo Guadalupe: I saw that. Nice Dom Perignon.

Kyron Keogh: 1998

Ricardo Guadalupe: Great

Kyron Keogh: Lovely, thank you very much it’s very kind of you. And thank you for taking the time to talk to me today. This is a new series of podcasts and interviews we’re launching for ROX. Lockdown is introducing all kinds of new ways of communicating so it’s lovely to see your face. It’s been a while. I can’t believe it. I think Russia was the last time I saw you believe it or not.

Ricardo Guadalupe:  Yes, it’s unbelievable 

Kyron Keogh: It’s been a challenging 12 months and Hublot is much about its ambassadors, its brand collaborations and the events associated with it. How has the pandemic changed all of this and how are you adapting?

Ricardo Guadalupe: Yes, absolutely. The pandemic has changed a lot for Hublot because as you said Hubot is known for events, physical events, and the many activations that we do around our different partnerships. So last year we should have had the Euro Cup, we hope that it will happen this year and we hope that we’ll have some public in the stadiums. But we have had to reinvent ourselves and of course digital has become key. It was already very important before the pandemic but it has become more strategic to really be able to apply digital approach in every dimension that we can have and marketing and events is part of it. So we have decided to go into digital events. As an example I would say product launches have of course been digitally launched last year. Like we did the Millionaire pink in the summer last year and last year was the 40 year anniversary of Hublot. We have tried to create an exhibition that you can visit virtually and we did a live broadcast around this exhibition for the 40 year anniversary. Lastly I would say the LVMH Watch Week where we crated really professional studios, Zoom studios, where we can present. We can’t touch the products but we give a lot of content. So the content has also become key. We need to to be able to create  quality content in photos but also in video, so now I would say digital is something that’s really important for our brand.

Kyron Keogh: Of course, and I guess as a retailer myself we’ve had to pivot and change to deliver and talk to our customers in a different way. We all miss that face to face interaction and we miss the events and those activations, like you say, and we can’t wait for those times to come. And of course, it’s England versus Scotland at Wembley this year which was on my list of things to do last year, so hopefully fingers crossed we get to see it live. 

Ricardo Guadalupe:  I hope so.

Kyron Keogh: You kicked off the digital LVMH Watch Week this year with your first collaboration with Takashi Murakami and it was lovely to see you in Tokyo. Of course you were in Switzerland, but you were on the screen. How has the reaction been to the new watch and the new partnership?

Ricardo Guadalupe: Yeah, that’s another example of an event where I was virtually present through a hologram in Tokyo in front of Takashi Murakami. I would say this new approach we have, creating partnerships in the universe of lifestyle and universe of art we started with Sang Bleu the tattoo artist, we have Richard Orlinski the French sculptor and I would say we went one step up with Takashi Murakami who is an icon of pop art culture. I would say that it’s really an honour for us that he accepted to collaborate with Hublot and I must say the success of the watch is just unbelievable. So we decided to create 200 pieces, very limited because the watch is a piece of art from Murakami and from Hublot, and the demand has been incredible. I must say Murakami is an incredibly well known artist not only in Japan but in the world and we had to decide to stop taking deposits – that was really unbelievable and I’m so glad of this successful partnership. 

Kyron Keogh: The phone rang off the hook for us. We had so many enquiries for it- it was phenomenal. It’s really great to see something like that happen digitally, actually, for the first time. We’re used to it happening in the shops but it was incredible. And of course, he’s an icon in the arts world and I hope there are many more collaborations to come.

Ricardo Guadalupe: We’re already working on a second edition and we hope this relationship will last for years because I think it’s really important. As I said I think we have explored with Hublot something totally new in the watch industry. To bring not only the watch making art but the art from an artist to put it in a watch and then the watch becomes a real piece of art.

Kyron Keogh: I got to see the novelties from LVMH Watch Week and I must say I loved them as you would expect - I always look forward to January. But one of my favourites was the orange sapphire automatic tourbillon - it’s absolutely stunning and a superb looking watch. How did that come about? Obviously you’ve been experimenting with different colours but orange was most unexpected and really beautiful.

Ricardo Guadalupe: Yes, absolutely. We always try to be creative, innovative and Hublot must always bring a product that doesn’t exist from other brands. The sapphire… we studied the industrialisation of sapphire in 2016 with a crystal clear Big Bang Unico at that time and since then we have been exploring and developing new colours. We came with the blue, we came with red, we came with the yellow. We’re always trying to find new colours and the orange came out and the result was really interesting and convincing. As it’s a world first we decided we wanted to come up with a movement which is not a world first but a first for Hublot, which is a tourbillon automatic. So again we try to bring innovation through the calibre with having this micro-rotor at the 12 o’clock and the tourbillon gauge at 6 o’clock. I think the mixture of both sapphire bridges where you can see the wheels floating in the face and the results, yeah, is amazing.

Kyron Keogh: I’m sure it will be very successful; it’s a beautiful looking watch.  You mentioned earlier, Hublot’s 40th anniversary last year and sadly you didn’t get the chance to celebrate like you hoped because of the pandemic but I guess despite the above Hublot always has to look forward. We’ve talked about digital, we’ve talked about technology, of course now Hublot has entered the smart watch arena. Can we expect this part of the business to evolve and develop and if so, how?

Ricardo Guadalupe: Again, Hublot isn’t a traditional brand that has existed for 200 / 300 years so at 40 years we are young and open to the world and to what’s going on. At a certain point I thought we can be open to this technology of smart watches and of course the know-how, the technological know-how, electronical know-how, is not exactly in Switzerland so we collaborate with Google with the Google Wear OS and we try to bring our creativity to the application. So the application dedicated to football has been created by us and the different types of dial, so the design in dials we’re offering, are created by us. The case in ceramic and the bracelet are produced by us too, so we assemble all the connected watches here in our factory and we believe there is a space, a niche, for luxury connected watches. Of course it won’t represent our main business, it will represent maybe a few percent of our business, but I think there is a niche where you can really bring interesting smart watches, linked to partnerships as well. So football now but tomorrow it could be something with art or tomorrow it could be something else but as I said our main core business is mechanical and new material watches. 

Kyron Keogh: We saw the launch of the Premier League watch last week in the UK which is a fantastic partnership for Hublot - great visibility and really reinforces that partnership with football. I’ve had the pleasure of being at both the Euros in Paris in 2016 and then in Russia with you in 2018, so I know how deep the partnership is with football and the new watch, that relationship makes sense. So we’re really excited to see what other collaborations you make in the future. It’s unlimited I guess – other sports and lots of opportunity.

Ricardo Guadalupe: In addition we’re also the technical supplier in the world because all the referees in the Premier League are wearing our connected watch and we did a specific application for them, including the goal line technology. We are also working with UEFA and with FIFA to be the technical support for all the referees which is also something very serious because when you do that you must be very professional, you must work with a very strong partner. It’s also interesting because we explore a new world; it opens our eyes to new technologies that can in a way inspire our mechanical watches as well.

Kyron Keogh: Let’s turn the spotlight back on you for a moment. What are you wearing on your wrist today? 

Ricardo Guadalupe: I’m wearing the Big Bang integral in blue ceramic. I believe the Big Bang integral is really a product in which we have a possibility to grow because as you know the bracelet, if you look at the market, the majority of watches are sold on bracelet. Of course this is led by one brand from Geneva but I think we are at a maturity with Hublot, who are known for rubber straps, but I think on bracelet we can build quite an interesting business. Again, being different when you come with the full blue ceramic, there aren’t that many brands that are offering a full blue ceramic integrated watch or white ceramic, grey ceramic, and maybe tomorrow another great material so I believe a lot in this Big Bang integral. 

Kyron Keogh: You visited Scotland in 2017 and we had a spectacular Art of Fusion party that night in a castle just outside of Edinburgh. It was a great night of celebration, we had pipes and drums, we had entertainment, and we even had Lewis Capaldi who turned out to be the biggest selling artist of 2019. He was just a fresh faced boy at the time. When are you coming back to Scotland, Ricardo? When can we enjoy some haggis and whisky again?

Ricardo Guadalupe: I tried the haggis that was something I really discovered! We’ve discussed that I would like to do the route of whisky in Scotland. I hope as soon as it will be open again I will come. Of course I think the vaccination is important. I’m on the waiting list already here in Switzerland, it takes a bit of time, but I think vaccination will be key for people to travel. I hope this summer at least I would say.

Kyron Keogh: It’s been lovely speaking to you today. Really, thank you for your time and who knew a year ago we would be communicating via Zoom. I hadn’t even heard of Zoom 12 months ago.

Ricardo Guadalupe:  Me neither

Kyron Keogh: But I really appreciate your time. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you, always a pleasure to hear about Hublot’s plans. You’re an important partner for us, we love working with you and we look forward to seeing the new watches coming at Watches and Wonders in April. Thank you.

Ricardo Guadalupe: Thank you, Kyron. I’m very happy and proud to work with ROX and we are really happy with the very professional work you are doing for our brand.  Thank you.