Ricardo Guadalupe, CEO of Hublot, On the Art Of Fusion - Men's Folio
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Ricardo Guadalupe, CEO of Hublot, On the Art Of Fusion

  • By Bryan Goh

Ricardo Guadalupe, CEO of Hublot, On the Art Of Fusion
Ricardo Guadalupe, CEO of Hublot, shares his thoughts on the Art of Fusion and the importance of football to Hublot.

Hublot was founded slightly more than 40 years ago, in 1980. What are some principles or values that Hublot emphasise to this day?
Hublot represents the Art of Fusion in watchmaking, and they did it in 1980 for the first time. It came with a watch made of yellow gold, a millenary material, with a rubber strap that is a modern material. This fusion is what we call the Art of Fusion, linking tradition with innovation.

 

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What phase do you think Hublot is at with its “Art of Fusion” motto?
We work on three pillars, and we can bring fusion into design. The Murakami watch, for instance, is a fusion of the art of Murakami and the Hublot art, and we realise a watch that becomes a piece of art.

I think consumers are waiting for this kind of product because a mechanical watch today is not important for telling time. It’s important for what it represents, the object it represents.

When it comes to materials, we always try to be innovative. We have coloured ceramics such as red and yellow. We industrialised sapphire in 2016, and we are the only brand to have coloured sapphire and produce sapphire watches at a certain price point, even though they are expensive. We work on different alloys too.

And from the movement side, we created the Unico chronograph calibre, masterpieces, and our tourbillon. We are creating new calibres for the future, but it takes years of development, and not months. We try at every level to be innovative.

That’s the key element for the success of Hublot in the future.

How does Hublot optimise its product strategy with the ever- changing taste of consumers?
We try to be innovative and creative and invest a lot in R&D in materials, movements (and in mechanics), and design. These are the three main pillars on which we work.

We try to create trends, and with our innovations and creativity, we can please the consumer and new consumers coming in with what we can offer. The key element is always to be innovative, and we do it more by instinct. We don’t analyse other trends; we create the trend.

 

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With the Fifa World Cup around the corner, how has Hublot’s presence in football helped the manufacture reach its marketing goals?
We entered football in 2006 with a very small partnership, and then in 2008, we had the Euro cup in Switzerland. And Mr Biver, at that time, thought about which sport we could support as a partner to communicate about our brand.

If you look at tennis, it’s quite complicated; if you look at golf, it’s complicated. And for football, there is no watch brand. Football is a very popular sport; it talks to not only our potential consumers but billions of people. Football has brought us brand awareness.

When I started working at Hublot in 2004, people in Switzerland didn’t know about Hublot. Today we can say that, in general, people know Hublot is a watch brand. And thanks to football, it was an accelerator for brand awareness, especially with the Hublot Big Bang Unico-shaped Referee Board that we had in Brazil.

Billions of people have seen it, so it is very positive for us and allowed us to be a strong brand in the world thanks to football.

Hublot ambassador Kylian Mbappé is currently one of football’s biggest stars. What do you admire most about him?
To take an active player was a decision. When you have an active player, you can have good and sometimes negative parts, such as injuries or issues in his private life. When you have a legend like Pelé, he will remain a legend forever. But at a certain point, I saw this link between a legend and an active player, and I saw it through Kylian Mbappé. Even Pelé sees him as his heritage because they won the World Cup at a very young age as Pelé did, and they have similar looks and play styles.

Mbappé accepted to be our ambassador; I think he’s a great personality, very positive. He has values of being serious and passionate, and he has success, so that’s important.

 

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Ambassadorship is one of the main pillars of Hublot’s marketing strategy. What are some values that Hublot looks out for in potential ambassadors?
First of all, we need to have good alchemy in human relationships. An ambassador has to like our brand and not just do a commercial deal. So we always have dinner or spend a moment with the ambassador before signing anything. Of course, they have to carry the values of passion, having success and being aspirational to the young generation.

Last question, can you give a teaser of what’s to come at LVMH Watch Week 2023?
(Laughs) I would say a new coloured sapphire.

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