NEW YORK — Baume & Mercier, the 175-year-old Geneva-based watch company, is hoping consumers will look a little more closely at the brand when Meg Ryan and Keifer Sutherland appear in its first celebrity-driven print ads next month.
Competitors have been running advertising featuring celebrities for years. Tag Heuer uses Uma Thurman, Maria Sharapova and other marquee names; Montblanc’s feature Johnny Depp and Julianne Moore; Longines’ new ads include Harry Connick Jr. and Aishwarya Rai, and David Yurman’s watch ads showcase Ed Burns.
But Baume & Mercier’s campaign is not only about celebrities hawking product; it has a charity angle as well.
The fees due to the celebrities and photographers are collectively being donated to Youth I.N.C., Hollywood Entertainment Museum, the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association, the Prostate Cancer Foundation and Doctors Without Borders. The company would not divulge the amounts of its donations to the charities.
“In our dialogue with Meg Ryan and Keifer Sutherland and their people, their approach to wanting to do this was the charity,” said Larry Califano, vice president of marketing and operations for Baume & Mercier, which is owned by the Swiss luxury group Compagnie Financière Richemont, as is Montblanc. “Whatever the contractual obligation is, it goes to charity. There are no product placements with any of their projects.”
The ads offer a link to the company’s Web site, which explains how each actor and the firm contribute to programs that “improve education for our children, seek to cure cancer and protect the environment.”
The campaign, called “Baume & Mercier & Me,” is a reissuing of a marketing program that spanned the years 1992 to 1996, showing a model wearing the company’s watch. The new ads bow next month in the October issues of magazines including W, Vanity Fair, Vitals, Gourmet, Real Simple, GQ and Details.
The campaign includes both a women’s and a men’s ad, featuring either Ryan or Sutherland. The women’s ad was shot by James White, while Robert Maxwell photographed the men’s campaign. The Diamant stainless steel and diamond watch is highlighted in Ryan’s ad, while the recently reissued Riviera chronograph watch is featured in Sutherland’s.
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“The whole campaign is about proximity,” said Califano. “What we wanted to do is bring a celebrity approach for that look and feel of awareness. Meg represents spontaneity and natural elegance, while Keifer is humble and has a strong sense of character.”