How Audemars Piguet delights customers with digital excellence and timeless craftsmanship
Jérôme Lorido has a unique view of time — fitting since he works as the Head of Client Solutions for renowned Swiss Haute Horlogerie manufacturer Audemars Piguet. "For me, time is deeply connected to love," says Lorido. "Time is as precious as love: we can never get enough."
Audemars Piguet aims to give its customers not just timepieces but also a connection to its rich heritage of watchmaking. "We’re not just interested in helping customers measure time," Lorido explains. "We want to help fill that time with engaging stories about our watches that have been cherished for generations."
A success story: transitioning from wholesale to retail
Since its founding in 1875, Audemars Piguet has built a strong reputation for high-quality watches and a loyal customer following. The company counts celebrities including Serena Williams, and Mark Ronson among its brand ambassadors.
For more than a decade now, Audemars Piguet has rethought its retail strategy to focus on people, increasing proximity between its teams and between all members of the AP family to enhance their experience and better respond to their evolving needs and expectations.
The company has navigated this transition with remarkable precision, expanding its client relationships into the digital realm with Adobe Experience Cloud at its core. All websites now run on Adobe Experience Manager Sites as a Cloud Service, with Edge Delivery Services accelerating development and performance to provide customers with superior online experiences. Adobe Experience Manager Assets serves as a central hub for all digital content, allowing marketers to create consistent web experiences even faster by helping them find and reuse assets.
One of the reasons that Audemars Piguet could adapt more personalized web interactions so quickly was that many designers and marketers were already familiar with Adobe products such as Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and InDesign. They knew they could trust Adobe solutions and quickly learned to use the intuitive interfaces.
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Enhancing the customer experience: from one-to-many to one-to-one
While the website allows Audemars Piguet to reach all of its clients and people of potential interest, Lorido also sees its potential to create more tailor-made experiences. "We aim for one-to-one relationships, striving to digitally replicate the personal touch that customers receive in boutiques," Lorido summarizes.
The first step to achieving this ambitious goal is quality data. Audemars Piguet established a data team tasked with creating a customer data platform to provide a 360-degree view of customer preferences and experiences. Marketers plan to use this data to develop personalized websites and tailored customer interactions. If someone is a music fan, for instance, the website might quickly guide them to related stories.
Lorido plans to continue working with Adobe to expand online functionality due to the trust that the marketing team has built with Adobe products and services. "Adobe support teams have been exemplary. We've not only benefited from their assistance in customer service but also learned valuable lessons for our own digital processes. The transformation from a small company in Le Brassus to an iconic global watchmaker has indeed been a triumph," says Lorido.
A new approach to customer interaction with generative AI
With a strong digital foundation in place, Lorido is ready to start building the brand’s digital future. Audemars Piguet envisions phasing out its traditional website, instead encouraging visitors to communicate their desires through prompts. Generative AI, in tandem with powerful Adobe tools, will ensure that customers receive precisely what they seek through personalized webpages built in real time that meet people’s preferences and convey engaging stories about watches.
"With generative AI, we can bridge the gap between ideas and reality," says Lorido.
The vision of Audemars Piguet is to ask its customers to share their dreams and generative AI will bring it to life using tools like Adobe Firefly. In this way, Audemars Piguet combines what they believe to be inseparable: The luxury of exquisite timepieces and the invaluable moments they aspire to share with their customers.