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f e at u r e wat c h e s
About time
A British watch company in the making
Awareness of an expensive watch usually comes
through full page advertisements in upmarket
glossy magazines, so it came as a surprise to
learn about a young British watch company
while reading a book about social media. But
then, as Sue Heady discovered, Christopher
Ward is not your average watch brand
ChrISTOpher Ward has turned the
expensive watch brand model on its
head in its efforts to create what it
describes as “the cheapest expensive watch in
the world”. The idea for the company came
about on a boat on the River Thames in 2004;
its first office was a disused chicken shed.
You’re starting to get the picture...
In the early noughties, Christopher Ward,
together with Mike France and Peter Ellis
(formerly of the Early Learning Centre),
had sold their previous companies and were
looking for a new business venture. They
came to the conclusion that whatever they
were going to make and sell had to be small
(so it could be shipped worldwide easily) and
of high value. This narrowed the opportunities
down to jewellery and watches, with watches
winning the day as they had been a passion of
Ward’s from a young age.
“My school was next door to Prescot
Museum, much of which is dedicated to
the history of watch-and clock-making
in the town, and I used to pop in there
regularly on my way home in the afternoon.
I was fascinated by the workings of the
timepieces,” recalls Ward. It’s hard to
imagine now, but Merseyside was a major
centre of watch making in the 18th and 19th
centuries, supplying the ships that plied their
trade to and from Liverpool, all of which
needed an accurate timepiece.
Researching
However, it was the rag trade in which Ward
worked when he finished his education
and it was there that he met a Swiss
watchmaker almost 30 years ago with whom
he subsequently became very good friends.
Said friend provided an entree into the
watch making industry when Ward and his
two partners decided to create Christopher
Ward. Ward, himself, spent many months
thoroughly researching the industry both
in the Far East and Switzerland, before
launching the first two models – the C5
Malvern Automatic and the C3 Malvern
Chronograph – both quintessentially British
in style, on June 4, 2004.
Now, I don’t know whether you’ve ever
noticed, but watches are a bit of an obsession
for a lot of people and this being the 21st
century, there are hundreds of internet forums
out there providing enthusiasts with the
I don’t know whether
you’ve ever noticed,
but watches are a bit
of an obsession for a
lot of people
opportunity to discus watches to their hearts’
content. So, when Christopher Ward launched
its first watches at just £99, these internet
forums went into overdrive with members
claiming that it simply wasn’t possible for a
watch claiming to be of such high quality to be
sold at such a low price.
It was only when one of the world’s most
influential watch bloggers, Dave Malone in
Australia, actually bought one of the watches
and posted a very complimentary review
online (“This watch is truly exceptional
value... It is lowly priced but beautifully
executed.”) that Christopher Ward’s arrival on
the watch scene was cemented.
Turnover has at least doubled year on
year since the company was established. In
2010, Christopher Ward is predicting sales of
between 15,000 and 20,000 watches, with a
turnover of £3.5 million, with current trading
up 70% on 2009, at a time when the Swiss
watch making industry as a whole suffered
around a 22% fall last year.
As Ward explains, “Our USP is the fact that
there is no one between us and the consumer.
We sell direct to the end user through the
internet (75-80% of our business is done on the
web, the rest is by phone), so the mark up from
product cost is 3.5. With other brands, it is 10
or 20 times the manufacturing cost, because
everyone has to take their cut, the agent, the
wholesaler, the retailer, each time multiplying
the cost to make their profit.
“In addition, a brand like Tag Heuer,
which employs brand ambassadors such as
Leonardo di Caprio and Lewis Hamilton,
spends millions on marketing through
advertising and sponsorship; our marketing
has all been done by word of mouth. In
order to get good feedback from customers,
who will talk about us positively, our
product has to be great quality and our
customer service has to be tiptop.
Assembled by hand
“Consumers are smarter these days, particularly
given the current economic climate. They
don’t want to be showing off with a flashy
Breitling, they want to be buying a quality
product at a fair price. Our watches tend to
exceed our customers’ expectations; they can’t
believe the quality they are getting for the price,
so they are happy to spread the word.”
The quality comes from the fact that every
Christopher Ward watch is assembled by hand
by skilled craftsmen in dedicated ateliers in
Switzerland’s Jura (a centre of watch-making
for 300 years), using a Swiss-made movement
that is a prerequisite of a fine watch.
When I ask Ward what differentiates his
brand from Swatch, another affordable brand
that has achieved cult status, he tells me,
“Nicolas Hayek at Swatch did a great job
in the early 1980s of inventing disposable
fashion watches, which have developed into
a collectable range, but even the Irony chrono
range (which retails for between £89 to £235)
will have lots of plastic components, while
ours are more substantial and use metal parts.
Swatch is mass produced by robots, while ours
are hand crafted and we offer luxury options
such as alligator straps, but not so Swatch.”
However, despite all its positive attributes,
Christopher Ward has still received the odd
piece of criticism. As Ward points out, “The
internet is a double-edged sword; if we get it
wrong, the online community is very quick
to point out that we’ve made a mistake and
as the man with his name attached to the
brand, it hurts”.
Famously, in the early days, one of the
2000 registered users of the dedicated
Christopher Ward forum – yes, it even
has its own forum, set up independently
by a Dutch enthusiast – nicknamed The
Terminator decided that he didn’t like the
design of a new model. He thought it would
be better with a gold case and a black face,
so Christopher Ward made a limited edition
of 100 according to his specifications
and named it The Terminator. Now, the
Christopher Ward forum organises regular
online debates where members chip in what
they would like to see in a watch, run polls
and pull together a new design that is put
into production.
This, it seems, is exactly how a successful
21st century company should be run, via the
internet and with the active participation of
its customers, building real brand loyalty.
The luxury Swiss watch brands should be
scared. Very scared. n
l www.christopherward.co.uk
48 Pharmacy Professional | July/August 2010 July/August 2010 | Pharmacy Professional 49