THE HIGH POINT

Zenith was in need of a transformation when JULIEN TORNARE stepped in as CEO in 2017. At LVMH Watch Week 2023, the Zenith CEO talks to Florey D Mikil about the brand's journey and additions to the Defy collection.

- Florey D Mikil

WITH HIS EXPERIENCE AND EXPERTISE IN THE WORLD OF HOROLOGY, JULIEN TORNARE IS THE RIGHT MAN TO CALL UPON TO LEAD A BRAND’S TRANSFORMATIVE JOURNEY. HAVING HELD THE POSITION AS CEO OF ZENITH FOR MORE THAN HALF A DECADE NOW, HE REFLECTS ON THE TRANSFORMATION THAT THE BRAND HAS UNDERGONE SINCE. “WHEN I CAME IN IN 2017, AS YOU KNOW, THE BRAND WAS NOT IN IN ITS BEST SHAPE. WE IMMEDIATELY STARTED TO WORK ON WHAT I WOULD CALL THE FUNDAMENTALS: THE PRODUCT. AND IT TAKES TIME TO CHANGE PRODUCTS. WE WORKED ON MARKETING AND WHAT WE CALL THE BRAND COMMUNICATION PLATFORM.”

“We had zero social media presence. So, we started that, with the celebrity strategy. I can mention so many things that my team have done. We retransformed the whole brand completely. We worked on that at the end of 2019. At the time, we were celebrating the 50th anniversary of El Primero,” he continues. “Then in early 2020, we had the Dubai Watch Week. We had fantastic orders, and the reactions were positive. We started to feel the turnaround, we started to feel that success was imminent. Two months after that, COVID-19 hit.”