An Intimate Dialogue
The beautiful game spurs Hublot onto greater success, CEO Ricardo Guadalupe tells Terence Lim in Moscow
Tunku Khadijah Abdul Rahman, Sharifah Menyalara Hussein and Natasha Idris uphold the legacy of Tunku Abdul Rahman and his high-spirited outlook
Football is a universal sport with immense mass appeal. According to the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, or more popularly known as Fifa, the 2014 World Cup was viewed by 3.2 billion viewers, of which one billion watched the final between Argentina and eventual champions Germany. Its reach is definitely very attractive from a sponsor’s perspective, but many luxury marques believe that football is too mass a sport compared to tennis, sailing or golf. Hublot thinks differently. It is totally in love with the beautiful game—obsessed, if you will. For one, it will be the official timekeeper of the Fifa World Cup for the third time running, come 2018. The watchmaker also sponsors several other competitions including the Fifa Confederations Cup, Uefa Euro, Uefa Champions League and Uefa Europa League. Besides the likes of Manchester United
manager José Mourinho and Brazilian legend Pelé, Hublot also sponsors teams such as Juventus (Italy), Benfica (Portugal) and Chelsea (England). So, what is the big appeal of football for Hublot? We had the opportunity to sit down with CEO Ricardo Guadalupe in June in Moscow, where he was officiating the one-year countdown event to the 2018 Fifa World Cup Russia with Pelé, and for the opening of the brand’s latest boutique in the Russian capital. “In the 2010 Fifa World Cup, we had the traditional referee board with the Hublot brand name below. But in 2014, we had the referee board in the shape of the watch, so it was easier for consumers to make the link between the watch and the brand,” said Guadalupe. “We had 21min of visibility in the World Cup—meaning that we reached billions of people. This is equivalent to hundreds of millions of advertising dollars, which we can never afford if we have to do something in every country. Thanks to that, the returns for us are incredible.”