Code 11.59 By Audemars Piguet: How To Fail At Marketing, AKA To Break The Rules You Must ...

Imagine, for a moment, that you find yourself taken back in time several years and plunked down in the CEO's chair at venerable watch enterprise Audemars Piguet In real life it appears that Audemars Piguet concluded that the answer to its problem was to create an entirely new line of watches sportier and edgier than traditional dress watches while still being on the dressy side of the Royal Oak In the Quill & Pad team's SIHH 2019 retrospective, I went on the record to say that I didn't think the watches themselves were the crimes against humanity some deemed them to be, but that there were substantial problems with Audemars Piguet's marketing strategy and tactics on Code 1159.

While the Code 11.59 watches are perhaps too close in type to the Royal Oaks, they are quite different from the Jules Audemars watches they replace By contrast, in January of 2019 Audemars Piguet introduced no fewer than thirteen different references across six watch types and three new movements Audemars Piguet gives us a hint with its labeling of this line as "Code 1159 by Audemars Piguet," suggesting that it is intended to stand somewhat apart from the core brand.

Is this line mainstream Audemars Piguet or meant to be a separate proposition under the AP umbrella? And just who is the intended customer for this set of pieces? Other than CEO François-Henry Bennahmias' almost comically vague statement that "It's not a men's watch and it's not a woman's watch, it's a watch," we're left to guess. . Source