By Joseph Dobrian



Springfield, N.J.—TAG Heuer, known for using sports stars as brand ambassadors, is reshuffling the lineup of its own sales and marketing team, dividing its North American coverage into eastern and western territories.

Steve Amstutz and Patti McMahon were moved up to regional vice presidents of sales, for east and west, respectively; Rich Louis was promoted to vice president of demand planning and retail/corporate sales; and Jenna Fagnan was named vice president of marketing. Each reports directly to Ulrich Wohn, the new president and chief executive officer of Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH) Watch and Jewelry North America.

Amstutz and McMahon are TAG Heuer veterans. Louis joined in 2005 after a stint at Citizen. Fagnan joins TAG Heuer from Moet Hennessy USA, where she was brand director for Dom Perignon.

“As a result of this reorganization, our marketing team will report to the same person for the first time in years,” Wohn says. “This will give us a more unified marketing direction and more insight into consumer feedback. Our regional vice presidents will spend more time with our partners and salespeople and less time traveling. They’ll go with the salespeople to individual doors in their territory, ensuring that in each store the merchandising is as good as it can be and that information about TAG Heuer is being disseminated, and hearing what retailers have to say about our product and our process.”

Retailer feedback is of growing importance to TAG Heuer, Wohn adds, and its sales and marketing team will be largely responsible for collecting it.

“We’re very much a male-dominated brand, but in the past three years, our business in women’s watches has doubled as part of our growth strategy, and TAG’s latest ladies’ designs, such as the Aquaracer series, have largely been based on input from our retailers about what women are looking for,” he says. “It was clear that women didn’t want simply a downsized man’s watch, or a man’s watch with diamonds. They wanted a big, bold piece that was identifiably a woman’s watch, and they wanted the option of a quartz or automatic movement.”

The Monaco was TAG’s answer to the trend of larger watches for women, he says.

TAG Heuer is coming off of its third consecutive year in which it has gained a 30 percent increase in sell-through in North America; thus its business on the continent has doubled since 2003, says Wohn.

He attributes much of TAG Heuer’s success to the “What Are You Made Of?” ad campaign, which will continue in 2007 with a few intriguing twists.

“The campaign is meant to be provocative, to speak to that mental strength that people are in tune with these days,” Wohn says. “We’ll adjust it to include stainless steel and 18-karat-gold models, and make other slight alterations later in the year that we can’t talk about yet.”

Each of the brand’s spokespeople—tennis star Maria Sharapova, NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon, actress Uma Thurman and golf champ Tiger Woods—represent a different watch series, allowing the company to gauge each one’s effectiveness.

“We keep each star behind the same product for a long time, choosing pieces that reflect their styles and personalities,” Wohn says.

The ad budget has been shifted to a 50-50 split between men’s and ladies’ watches, though sales now run 60-40 in favor of men’s models, a decline from the 80-20 percent split favoring men’s a few years ago, he says.

“We’re trying to get the women’s sales to approach the men’s, but we want to grow men’s sales at the same time. Therefore, women’s watches are getting bolder, and men’s pieces are getting bigger with more complications,” Wohn says.

He predicts 2007 will be “a tremendous year” for new TAG Heuer product, but the company is saving the unveiling for BaselWorld.