Cortina rethinks marketing amid slowdown

Regional general manager Jeremy Lim said last week that although there was money in the Asian system, people were being more careful about their spending now that the financial crisis has spread worldwide.

With topend timepieces being luxury goods, he accepts that sales will be affected by the global problems. However, he does not want to be too pessimistic and therefore has to present the right brands and designs to meet consumer requirements in these tougher times.

By doing this, he expects Singaporebased Cortina Watch will be able to achieve its sales target.

"We have to market cautiously, even when spending our marketing budget for luxury timepieces, in the current economic situation. Asian consumers are thinking [more] carefully before spending their money. Therefore, we have to be [even more] sure we are presenting watch brands with designs and functions that will meet consumer requirements," he said.

Cortina Watch is currently holding Jewellery Time 2008, the company's luxurytimepiece showcase, which is a biennial event. The showcase runs until November 9 at the Paragon shopping mall in Singapore. Jewellery Time was inaugurated in 2000 and this year is the fifth edition.

Lim said 16 luxury brands - including Audemars Piguet, Baume & Mercier, Cartier, Chopard, Concord, Corum, JaegerLeCoultre, Patek Philippe and Omega - were presenting their new jewellery timepieces at the show. This year's event is focusing more on presenting jewelled watches for men.

"I expect Jewellery Time 2008 to be the big event for luxury timepieces in Asia, which can stimulate sales of Cortina Watch this year to meet our target. I can't tell you our sales target for the year, but I can say that sales are still good compared with last year," he said.

Lim said Jewellery Time 2008 was a bigger event than the last exhibition in 2006. Cortina Watch has spent 2.5 million Singapore dollars (Bt59 million) on this edition and expects to attract about 120,000 visitors.

Cortina Watch was founded in 1972 as a distributor of luxury watches in Asia. It has 17 boutiques across Asia, including outlets in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand are ranked the top three markets for the company, respectively.