Marketing Fundamentals: A Deep Dive into Audemars Piguet's Strategy

This report provides an analysis of the marketing mix of Audemars Piguet, a renowned luxury watch brand. The report begins with an introduction to the company, its history, and its key products, including the iconic Royal Oak. It then delves into the 4Ps of marketing: product, price, promotion, and place. The product section discusses Audemars Piguet's commitment to innovation, high-quality materials, and unique designs. The price section explores the brand's premium pricing strategy, including its limited availability and exclusive distribution. The promotion section examines the brand's investment in monobrand stores and its efforts to manage its brand image. The report concludes by highlighting Audemars Piguet's focus on its target market and its strategic marketing plan. The report also includes references to various sources used for the analysis and appendices with additional information about the brand's history and products. The report covers the marketing mix elements in detail, providing insights into Audemars Piguet's approach to product development, pricing, promotion, and distribution strategies. This report effectively illustrates how Audemars Piguet has positioned itself as a luxury brand in the market.

Management Foundation Studies
Marketing Fundamentals
Name:Celine Piong Jing Ling
ID:10222114
CA2 SMM Submission

1.Introduction
This report will be discussing about Audermas Piguet and the purpose of this report is
to study the marketing mix of Audermas Piguet.It is headquartered in Switzerland and
was founded by Jules Louis Audemars and Edward Auguste Piguet in Vallée de
Joux,1875.It officially became Audemars Piguet & Cie in 1881.
2a.Background
With the invention of the first minute repeater wristwatch, the company made its first
truly revolutionary production in 1892. Just a few years later, in 1899, the "Grand
Complication" pocket watch debuted. The model had seven distinct complications.
2b.Product and Services
The first ever watch to be created is Royal Oak,is considered to be the first luxury
sports watch in the world.Still, Audemars Piguet has never ceased to continue
innovating.The larger Royal Oak Offshore was born a decade later by designer
Emmanuel Gueit.It has continued with delivering excellent service,this can be seen
from customers feedback.New parts,based on the latest technological advances,are
fitted if necessary.
3.Marketing concept using 4Ps
Below explains Audemars Piguet marketing mix according to the rules of 4Ps.
For product,Audemars Piguet carries on its tradition of innovation and aims to build
new emotional and sensory experiences in order to build a long-term association with
their consumers.
AP goal was to align the user experience with the brand concept, which we achieved
by refining and improving user flows on their in-store iPad app, and by giving it a
new look and feel that was both modern and responsive.AP differs itself from
competitors as its design distinguishes from other brands and delivers goods at the
price consumers pay for. Their watches also stand out for the use of high quality
materials and techniques.The use of white golden screws shows that they know
perfection is often in detail. Due to these high quality standards also account for the
movements, this makes it beneficial and more worth to whom are looking for long-
lasting watches.

For price,Audemars Piguet is one of the largest of all heritage dial names and top-
quality mechanical luxury watches for price. According to Bennahmias, clients will
first be permitted to swap their old watches in exchange for a discount on brand new
ones depending on the condition in which they are brought in. It will then market the
traded-in watches at select Audemars outlets. Customers will not be able to exchange
their old watches for cash for now, however when the company moves this new
business model to wider second-hand markets such as the United States and the
United Kingdom, they will change that. Audemars Piguet does not do any discounts
or deals to enhance their sales except in their offline shop.
Only retailers can sell and keep the watches for placement. They also set up a
boutique and service center in the prime shopping area to preserve their brand name
and credibility. And its only one at Starhill Gallery in Malaysia. The limited
availability of the goods lends itself to the brand's high and exclusive pricing strategy.
The location chosen is all in the world's key luxury hubs, and has a proven reputation
for carrying high-quality, exclusive merchandise.
Finally,promotion.Audemars Piguet, a family-owned company that claims to have
only monobrand stores in three to five years,. is also investing in some of the
approximately 30 franchises already bearing its name.It has 60 monobrand outlets out
of a total of 200 distribution points, but only 25 are completely owned for now. In an
example of attempts to better manage its brand, the company is taking a majority
stake in a Los Angeles franchise, Chief Executive Francois-Henry Bennahmias told
Reuters.

Conclusion
Audemars Piguet is a luxury brand that can be purchased by selected groups of
people; the company is specific about its target market and has formulated its
marketing plan in line with market requirements. Most ads are put in elite-class
magazines and newspapers to educate them about the watches.
Word count:630

References
Audemars Piguet, Le Brassus. (2020a). Audemars Piguet | Swiss Luxury Watches. Retrieved
from Audemars Piguet - Le Brassus website: https://www.audemarspiguet.com/en/
Balcan Bros. (2020b). BB Agency - Human Experience Design and Development Agency.
Retrieved December 1, 2020, from bb.agency website:
https://bb.agency/project/audemars-piguet
Bazemore, C. (2018, July 18). The History of Audemars Piguet. Retrieved from Crown &
Caliber Blog website: https://blog.crownandcaliber.com/the-history-of-audemars-
piguet/
catawiki. (2020c). What is so special about Audemars Piguet watches? Retrieved from
Catawiki website: https://www.catawiki.com/stories/2481-what-is-so-special-about-
audemars-piguet-watches
chrono24. (n.d.). Audemars Piguet watches | Chrono24.com. Retrieved December 1, 2020,
from www.chrono24.com website:
https://www.chrono24.com/audemarspiguet/index.htm
digest team, the luxe. (2018, January 26). Audemars Piguet’s Timely Sales Strategy.
Retrieved December 1, 2020, from www.theluxedigest.com website:
https://www.theluxedigest.com/?source=Audemars_Piguet
%27s_Timely_Sales_Strategy&cat=20&read=233
en.wikipedia.org. (2020d, November 24). Audemars Piguet. Retrieved December 1, 2020,
from Wikipedia website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audemars_Piguet
JAMES ROBINSON. (2019a, September 29). Looking back at the Audemars Piguet Royal
Oak Chronograph. Retrieved December 1, 2020, from Time and Tide Watches
website: https://timeandtidewatches.com/looking-back-at-the-audemars-piguet-royal-
oak-chronograph/
Oracle Time 2020 Opulent Media Ltd. (2020e). Audemars Piguet. Retrieved December 1,
2020, from Oracle Time website: https://oracleoftime.com/brands/audemars-piguet/
Reuters API. (2019b, January 17). FashionNetwork.com - The World’s Fashion Business
News. Retrieved December 1, 2020, from us.fashionnetwork.com website:
https://us.fashionnetwork.com/
Sachdeva, R. (2016, November 16). Marketing strategy and new product launch for
Audemars Piguet. Retrieved December 1, 2020, from Issuu website:
https://issuu.com/ravneetsachdeva/docs/fragrance_book_edited
Simon de Burton. (2020f, January 29). Audemars Piguet is so much more than its iconic
Royal Oak. Retrieved December 1, 2020, from British GQ website: https://www.gq-
magazine.co.uk/watches/article/audemars-piguet-guide

WatchTime Magazine. (2020g). WatchTime Audemars Oiguet WatchTime. Retrieved
December 1, 2020, from www.watchtime-shop.com website: https://www.watchtime-
shop.com/watchtime-dec-2012.html
WatchTime Magazine. (2020h). WatchTime Spotlight: Audemars Piguet watches
WatchTime. Retrieved December 1, 2020, from www.watchtime-shop.com website:
https://www.watchtime-shop.com/watchtime-spotlight-audemars-piguet.html

Appendices
More than a company, Audemars Piguet is. It remains an independent family business
founded and still operating in the cradle of fine watchmaking, Le Brassus. The first
pages in the rich history of our Manufacture were written by Jules Louis Audemars
and Edward Auguste Piguet. Proud members of the closely knit network of craftsmen
in the Vallée de Joux, their business was founded in 1875. The world of Audemars
Piguet was and is, striking mechanisms, chronographs and astronomical
complications. Of the approximately 1,500 watches made between 1882 and 1892 by
Audemars Piguet, the company's leaders show that over 80 percent of them had at
least one complication, and multiple complications in several instances. This watch
reflects the great horological traditions of the Vallée de Joux, a masterpiece proposed
at the end of his apprenticeship by Jules Louis Audemars, co-founder of Audemars
Piguet. The oldest Audemars Piguet building was built around a well to draw water
from a nearby spring. Until the 1950s, the workshops expanded steadily,
accommodating fewer than 50 workers, then reaching 100 employees from the 1970s
onwards.
Each watch was special prior to 1951, when the "model" concept was introduced.
Today, Audemars Piguet remains firmly committed to creating very small shows,
produced with the utmost care and displaying the utmost respect for the traditions of
watchmaking.
Many chapters of history remain to be written and the pieces that come to life today in
the workshops of Audemars Piguet, the very place where the founding fathers took up
instruments in 1875, may one day be displayed in its museum, alongside the
masterpieces designed by the brand's architects and their ancestors.
Audemars Piguet has devised endlessly imaginative horological masterpieces for over
a century. Over the years, Audemars Piguet watchmakers have exceeded
technological and theoretical limits to build increasingly challenging mechanisms.
The Royal Oak is considered to be the most famous watch currently produced by
Audemars Piguet for Royal Oak/Concept/Offshore. It was first unveiled during the
quartz crisis at Baselworld in 1972. The Royal Oak model is considered to be the
world's first luxury sports watch by Gérald Genta, who is also responsible for
designing other prominent watches, including the Patek Phillipe Nautilus. The watch
was influenced by traditional diving helmets and thus featured exposed screw heads
as well as a unique case design. The watch also featured an integrated bracelet.
To mark the Royal Oak's 20th anniversary, Audemars Piguet hired a young designer,
Emmanuel Gueit, to design a new watch known as the Royal Oak Offshore. The
Offshore was officially unveiled in 1993, with a much larger case (42 mm compared
to the original 39 mm) that was thought to be tougher than the original.
For [Re]master01, like a remastered recording from the 1940s,[Re]master01
reinterprets one of the rare chronograph wristwatches from Audemars Piguet with the
new chronograph technology and a dial design increasing legibility. In the early 20th
century, Audemars Piguet created very few chronographs, only 307 by their count,
and this is one of the bunch's most important. You could also recall the watch: it made
an appearance with Alfredo Paramico back in 2014 in Talking Watches and sold a

year later at Phillips as well. That's where it was purchased by Audemars Piguet,
although the design for this project began well before the watch found its way into
their set.
"People are very cognisant of the design shake up that took place in the 1970s and in
the early 2000s," Michael Friedman, the Head of Complications of Audemars Piguet,
says in the watch's press release. "However, creative expressions of case form and dial
design have occurred during every decade of our history." He is also careful to stress
that this is not a historic reissue – it is a contemporary remastering of one of our past
creations."
That is an important difference to make. Far from being just semantics. The first will
be about being faithful in shape to an original, while the second is more about being
faithful in principle to an original. On a black backdrop, the [Re]master01 looks very
similar to the original watch from 1943, but if you look at the spec sheet or see the
metal watch, you soon know that it's more than that. For a modern automatic
chronograph, the watch is 40mm wide and neither especially thick nor thin.
However it still retains the distinctive two-tone case, with the stainless steel caseband,
lugs, and caseback and the bezel, crown, and pushers made of pink gold. This is then
paired with a gold-tone dial floating somewhere between yellow and champagne, with
a vertical brush and a crisp print. The chronograph hands and tachymeter scale are
written in blue, providing a punch of color, and a red 45 (again retained from the
original) is also included in the chronograph minutes totalizer that is intended for
timing the halves of a soccer match. However, my favourite antique touch?
"Audemars, Piguet & Co / Genève"Audemars, Piguet & Co / Genève. It just looks so
cool.
The [Re]master01 is a 500-piece limited edition and will be available only at
Audemars Piguet boutiques. Because of the COVID-19 situation, many of those
boutiques are currently closed, but the first watches should be available as soon as the
boutiques reopen. It's going to sell for 53,100 dollars, not including taxes.
A few weeks before the 2015 SIHH Version, Audemars-Piguet released something
very interesting, a pure concept watch with a single objective: to be the Minute
Repeater 2.0.0. This watch summarizes 8 years of research and development focused
on the now popular Royal Oak Design case, all committed to improving the volume,
pitch, tones and harmony of a minute repeater's sound. AP, however, remains highly
discreet about how this watch operates and what the solutions used are. But here at
Monochrome-Watches, you know us we're going to try to send you some hints after
seeing the watch in the 'metal'.
With this Royal Oak Design RD1 Acoustic Testing, Audemars-Piguet claims to have
the best ever Minute Repeater. To achieve this outcome, it took 8 years of hard work
for their internal R&D teams led by APRP-Audemars Piguet Renaud & Papi) together
with the EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne). Several aspects are the
subject of the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Concept RD1 Acoustic Research: water
resistance, volume, purity and sound harmony.
The first research focus was on water resistance, which seems to be an easy problem
to solve. Most of the classic minute repeaters are not water resistant (or comes with
just a very limited protection against water projections). Yeah, don't expect an A. To
be your faithful companion in deep salty waters or even your shower, Lange & Sohne

Zeitwerk Minute Repeater or Jaeger-Lecoultre Master Minute Repeater. The reason:
to be audible, sound requires room and openings.However, Audemars Piguet
preferred to have a watch functional and resistant to 20 meters in almost) all
conditions of everyday life (not what we can call a super water resistance but a least,
you can wash your hands with your watch strapped on the wrist). The key issue is that
the volume of the sound produced by the chimes would be greatly diminished by a
case that is hermetically closed.
The sound is now diminished due to this water resistance. The solution: install an
amplifier. The answer is hidden on the back of the watch—we were not allowed to
take pictures of the back of course... but that doesn't stop us from telling you what we
saw. A double back, an overlayer that we expect to create a kind of resonance
chamber that amplifies the echo, hides the back of the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak
Design RD1 Acoustic Study. Another case back with openings sits on the top of the
classic caseback (juts like the old cricket watches). Another potential reason could be
that the primary caseback might vibrate even more to intensify the sound. The effect
is a watch that can be heard not only by its wearer, but even by people around it, even
in a very noisy room (you can hardly hear it while you are in the middle of a
conversation for those who have already experienced classical minute repeaters,
unless you have it next to your ear).
This refers to the external part of the watch, but the mechanism of the minute repeater
itself was also changed in order not to gain volume this time, but to enhance the
sound's purity and harmony. There are 2 key components to a musical sound: the note
itself and the harmonics. The note generates the pitch, and the harmonics generate the
sound's musicality and richness. The hypothesis is that. Actually various parasite
sounds, coming from the atmosphere or from the mechanics' work, must also be
considered. A minute repeater consists of several gears, levers and springs that shift
when the device is triggered, producing vibrations and thus parasite noises, the
greatest enemy of the sound's musicality and purity.
By using many (unknown) methods, AP tries to eliminate these parasite noises in
order to isolate or decrease the sound of these components (it even goes for the
balance wheel and escapement mechanism). The less noise the motion itself makes,
the more pure the repeater's sound would be. A modern, almost quiet, striking
mechanism regulator (called governor) was created by Audemars Piguet. The other
technological solution is likely to be found in gongs and hammers. The Audemars
Piguet Royal Oak Concept RD1 Acoustic Research creates more notes (around 8
notes) but less harmonics if a classical minute repeater creates approximately 4
separate notes and a massive amount of harmonics (that creates a superb musicality).
Due to the additional notes, the sound produced is rich, not because of the harmonics.
It is also more pure and safe. Plus, since the notes are less disrupted by harmonics,
you can hear them easily and the case can intensify a clean sound more easily.
These are all personal assumptions, of course, which should not be treated as official
explanations provided by Audemars Piguet. We can only guarantee you that the sound
provided by the Acoustic Testing Minute Repeater Audemars Piguet Royal Oak
Concept RD1 is extremely loud, very pure and brings outstanding musicality. We
haven't spoken about the rest of the watch, but be aware that a one-minute tourbillon
(at 6) and a 30-minute counter chronograph at 3 are also included. All of this is

contained in a case and caseback of 44mm titanium.It's not going to be made, so we're
so sorry, but you can't buy this watch.