Bucherer CMO on why the brand is betting on art to sell luxury watches

In recent years, luxury has begun to lean into the idea of creating holistic spaces versus simply polished showrooms to sell products.

For many retailers, such as Tiffany’s and Louis Vuitton, that has meant opening up cafes or restaurants, while others have added more immersive elements to the shopping experience.

In the case of Rolex-owned Bucherer (formerly Tourneau-Bucherer)—the Swiss watch and jewelry brand founded in 1888—that has meant collaborating with artists.

In March, the brand partnered with American contemporary artist Christopher Florentino, who creates under the name Flore, for an exhibition at its New York flagship, part of what Bucherer USA CMO Carina Ertl calls its broader “art program.”

“The store is literally designed like a gallery space, and we have a professional art hanging system,” she told Retail Brew, adding that the brand has had shows featuring everyone from Andy Warhol and Pablo Picasso to solo shows of Terry O’Neill.

“Even though we’re a multibrand retailer, we are also a brand in its own right, so we really try to showcase more than just the creation of fine watches and luxury jewelry pieces,” she said.

Beyond art, Bucherer’s New York flagship, called “TimeMachine,” features multiple bars serving drinks, part of a broader push to create a full-scale experience with the ultimate goal of engaging everyone from ultra-high-net-worth clients to younger, aspirational consumers who increasingly value experience alongside product.

In chatting with Retail Brew, Ertl opened up about why art matters for the brand, the evolution of its identity, and reimagining itself as a hospitality space.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Why is art so integral to your brand?

Usually there is a very strong relationship between our clients and clients who like to collect art or cars or fine wines. So it’s just interesting creating a community and bringing in a new audience to the store.

[These artists’ collaborations] are really part of being within luxury retail today. It all connects at the end of the day. Your audience really wants to be part of something, right? That’s human nature.

Also, when we look into studies, that audience has shifted a little bit from luxury being more of a status symbol, to luxury as being part of something bigger. Purchases today are more intentional. What we are trying to do is not just make sure that you have a beautiful experience when you buy a luxury product, like a luxury watch, but connect it with art, design, [and] with the space.

What role does hospitality play in your retail strategy today?

With the rebranding from Tourneau to Bucherer, a big part of that was to really recreate and redesign the store network. We have these two beautiful flagships right now, the one [in New York] and then another one in Las Vegas. Those were really also designed with the mindset of hospitality.

We call it Swiss hospitality within the store. At TimeMachine in New York, on every level, there’s a bar, and this is not about like, “Oh, we want you to drink.” No. It’s more like, “We want you to feel comfortable to hang out, to not just be in a chair in front of a watch case, but have a more organic way of shopping, and exploration.” That’s kind of how we think about the design of the retail environment in general.

How has the brand evolved over time?

Obviously with the rebrand, the first step was making sure that people start to understand what Bucherer is and making sure Bucherer gets known. The last two years, and also when I think about the programming for this year, it’s really about bringing the brand even more to life, really honing in on the client and the custom experience, and also making sure we are building a community and we are culturally relevant.

Part of being culturally relevant is coming back again to the art from the customer perspective…We have a lot of these studies where we, as I said at the beginning, where there is the next generation of clients that is more intentional, that wants to be more immersed in not just the actual product, but immersed in community. That’s something that we are definitely trying to provide with our marketing strategy in the United States. But it’s also so important because we talk a lot, especially in the field of marketing, about AI and AI optimization. When we look at marketing strategies, so much about how AI will change how we actually also operate within the field of marketing, it’s so important to point out that it’s actually the analog experience that’s absolutely crucial, and gets even more important through that AI push within the field of luxury.