Jony Ive, Patek Philippe, And The Ferrari Luce Launch
And three watch launches, the challenges of disrupting expectations – and why there aren't more aluminum watch cases.
The launch of the Ferrari Luce, the first electric car from Maranello, was always going to generate controversy, but the backlash ultimately seems to have been less about the fact that it’s an electric Ferrari, and more about the fact that it doesn’t feel like a Ferrari. Why it doesn’t and how it doesn’t have already formed the basis of an entire cottage sub-industry of comments, counter-comments, articles, and videos, analyzing just what went wrong and when, which of course goes to show you just how outsized a presence the company has in our collective consciousness – this, by the way, from a company which makes about three and a half times fewer cars than Audemars Piguet makes watches. The story (and to a lesser extent, the apparent insanity of the Jaguar rebranding exercise from two years ago) are interesting to look at in light of three recent watch launches, which all three faced the challenge of creating positive outcomes from disruptive launches, without accidentally harvesting any backlash.
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Bridging the gap between established expectations and a push into new territory – whether technical, cultural, financial, or some combination of all three – does come with some major challenges which require awareness of them on some level for a rebrand to work. (It is an interesting feature of rebrands that we seem to remember the disasters more than the successes; this may be a feature of the current and apparently ineradicable outrage economy, or it may simply be that nothing ignites schadenfreude as much as failure through ineptness – a hilariously wrongheaded rebrand exerts a kind of Darwin Awards fascination. A hero losing is a tragedy, an idiot losing is a comedy).
However, before getting into Our Feature Presentation, I have a little something to say about an interesting question which came up in the comments for last week’s installment: “The Sorrow And The Pitting,” which is about the phenomenon of pitting erosion in stainless steels. Regular reader Rip Roach asked a question I’d never really considered before (the best kind) which was, Why are there so few aluminum watch cases, when it’s so light, relatively strong, easy to machine, and corrosion resistant?
Where Are The Aluminum Watches?
One of the reasons that aluminum is probably not widely used for watch cases, is that it actually can corrode. The term “rust” is not used for the result, but the effect is the same: progressive surface damage and eventually, possible structural damage and even complete loss of the object in question. It is true that aluminum won’t corrode in the presence of oxygen and water, like non-stainless steels, and it’s because (though this might sound paradoxical) aluminum reacts strongly with oxygen. Aluminum oxide forms rapidly and prevents any further oxidation, which is where the metal’s reputation for resistance to corrosion comes from, and it’s generally well deserved.
However, the stuff does start to corrode under certain conditions, including acidity, and the presence of chlorides (our old friend from stainless steel corrosion) and sulphides, which can get into water or the atmosphere from both industrial and natural sources (including some types of bacteria, which excrete corrosive hydrogen sulphide).
Human sweat, as it turns out, contains chlorides (hence the salty taste of sweat) sulphides, and of course, water, and it’s acidic to boot, and all of that means that the environment between your watch case and your wrist has the potential to cause significant corrosion over time, even to aluminum.
There’s also a phenomenon called galvanic corrosion which can occur if two different metals are in contact with each other and they’re immersed in an electrolyte (a solution that can conduct electricity) like seawater. One metal loses electrons – this is the anode, which is by definition being oxidized – with the other gaining them. If you have an aluminum hulled boat, you have to take steps to guard against galvanic corrosion and the way you do this is pretty cool: you use what’s called a “sacrificial anode.” These are usually made of zinc, and they oxidize more readily than aluminum, which means that they corrode in its place; when they’re completely shot, you just swap them out for a new one, which a lot cheaper than replacing a rudder assembly or a cooling system or what have you.
You can partially guard against this by anodizing the aluminum, but titanium and stainless steel are probably going to be better choices (with the caveat that I’m not a metallurgist and given that it’s the second most common metal on Earth, there are probably more aluminum alloys than there are stars in the sky, with probably a wide range of corrosion resistance).
The other way around the problem is to just use a different material for the caseback. Titanium would do (this is the solution used by some brands for watches with marine bronze cases) or ceramic, or anything strong enough for the job, and biocompatible.
Get this though: the real answer to the question, “why aren’t there more aluminum cased watches,” is, hold on to your hats, that there are aluminum cased watches, and what’s more, there are millions of them, not just the ones that say “Invenit et Fecit” on the dial. Apple has been using aluminum for the cases of the Apple watch ever since they started making them, almost without exception – there may be as many as a quarter billion aluminum cased Apple watches in existence, which means that aluminum is almost certainly one of the most common watch case materials in use today. Apple gets around the corrosion problem by using ceramic for the casebacks, with a synthetic sapphire window for the heart rate sensor (the other reason for using ceramic is that induction charging for the watch won’t work if the caseback is made of a conductive material).
For watches likely to be exposed to chlorides and an acidic environment for extended periods of time – like the Ultra, which is designed to be capable of use for regular swimming – Apple uses titanium instead of aluminum, titanium still being the gold standard among metals for corrosion resistance (at least, among metals affordable to the general consumer).
With that out of the way, we are ready for the main event: The Ferrari Luce launch, and the launches of three watches each of which were disruptive, but in different ways. These are the new Formex Aria Chronometer, the Barrelhand Monolith, and naturally, the Royal Pop. And as a case study from a non-watch product, we’re also going to take a look at the highly polarized reception of the Ferrari Luce.