Tag Heuer's biggest problem?

Christian reviews Tag Heuer's changing brand identities through the years, from the Heuer Carrera and Autavia, to the Link and Sports Elegance collections, and finally - to the Smart Connected 45. The biggest question is - will Tag Heuer sell ANYTHING just to make a profit?

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Today, Christian sounds off on the Tag Heuer brand identity crisis!

In the 90s, Tag Heuer was a bit of a holy grail brand. While not exactly doing anything revolutionary in their watchmaking, they'd built a superb base of consumers via some incredible marketing and had become a luxury brand seemingly out of nowhere. To look at them now, though, it seems like we're living with three different brands altogether under one name.

1) "Heuer" - The "brand" that carries on the legacy of the original vision for the company with models like the Autavia, Carrera, and Monaco. It's a line that was born from the 90s, and the influence of Jack Heuer, who was made honorary chair after being forced to sell the thing in the first place to LVMH. And it was a forward thinking move, since brands like Longines and Tudor didn't get on the same well-received bandwagon until 2013.

2) "TAG" - Here, we have the side of the company that is referred to as their "rebirth," in many ways. It launched with the 1000 Series of dive watches, essentially Rolex Submariner homages, in 1985, and reached its apex with the Sports Elegance collection (later renamed the Link collection). Perhaps the cash cow here, though, is the Aquaracer, which is, like everything else in the line, kind of generic.

3) "Jean-Claude TAG" - The brand's most recent former CEO, Jean-Claude Biver, is all about innovation, from materials to technology, but the first piece of this puzzle actually pre-dates Biver's involvement. In 2004, the brand released the Monaco V4, the first watch ever powered by a belt, rather than a gear train. And the list goes on from there, but on the whole, this makes sense if they plan to be a presence in the sport watch space. This also leads to their smartwatches. They're the true sport watches of today, like it or not, and it's impressive to say the least that the brand is committed to improving the quality of the product throughout its life, unlike Apple.

So how do we fix Tag Heuer? First up is the marketing, and this is a really simple one. All the brand needs to do here is do some marketing that's tailored to the enthusiast community, and do so in a big way. It's what helped relaunch Tudor, and it's the only logical thing for them to do as well. As for the products themselves, it's nearly as simple. The brand needs a golden thread, of sorts, and an intersection between Jean-Claude TAG and Heuer is the only way forward, whether that's an Autavia in some kind of insane, ceramic case, or a Carrera with a smart strap (like the kind used by Frederique Constant) would be a huge step in the right direction.