Sandwiched in between Morgan Stanley and Societe Generale on Canary Wharf’s Bank Street, you will find premier padel tennis destination, Padium. Opened in 2023, the 30,000 sq ft space might seem a little incongruous surrounded by skyscrapers but its presence is testament to the rapid ascent of Europe’s fastest growing sport over the past decade – from an obscure leisurely pastime in Sweden and Spain to a cult-like workout in London’s financial hub.
According to the International Federation of Padel, there are now a whopping 25 million players worldwide with numbers rising by the day. The creation of a new professional tour funded by the state-backed Qatar Sports Investments group is also expected to bring the elite side of the game to a larger audience. The result? Padel could be worth up to $2bn a year globally, if Deloitte’s estimations are correct, with the possibility of an industry that could treble in size over the next three years. It’s a commercial opportunity that has many operators keeping a watchful eye.
Which brings us back to Padium. Sitting opposite me, as the sound of tennis balls springing off padded bats echoes through the space, is Certina’s CEO Marc Aellen. The Swiss watch brand, first established in 1888, has a lofty reputation for producing excellent value sports watches in the mid-price segment, but it has now aligned its interests with padel tennis as part of a dynamic new marketing approach under Aellen’s influence. Certina is now collaborating with clubs, national federations, and the World Padel Tour, as well as sponsoring one of the world’s best players, Spain’s Marta Ortega. There’s even a dedicated watch, the Certina DS-7 Chronograph Padel Edition, to further illustrate the brand’s commitment.
It’s a bold gamble, but Aellen is a calculated customer whose instincts have served him well throughout his 23 years at the Swatch Group. He tells Square Mile about his vision for Certina and how padel tennis became the brand’s fresh focus.
Certina DS-7 Chronograph Padel Edition by Marta Ortega
Square Mile: Can you define the Certina brand?
Marc Aellen: We are the sports brand of the mid-price segment. The watches themselves revolve around the DS, or “double security” concept, which dates back to 1959 where the movement within the case is protected by an additional gasket for maximum shock resistance as well as 200m water resistance. When it was first released it was a pioneering innovation in the watch world and, of course, because it was one of the first water-resistance watches we also have a huge history with diving, especially if you look at our Certina DS Super PH500M.
So we have this legitimacy in diving and sports watches. In short, we are offering very robust watches for a very fair price. I think if you are looking for a reasonably priced Swiss watch that is built to last,
then Certina is a great choice.
SM: Could you tell us a little bit about your background in watches?
MA: I’ve been with the Swatch Group for 23 years now, but I actually started my journey with the group at Certina in 2001. Then I was the original sales manager for Eastern Europe. Then I had a chance to go to the big brand – Omega – for four years, also in charge of Eastern Europe. Before I returned to Certina, I spent 12 years with Jaquet Droz as vice president of sales. Suddenly in the middle of the pandemic, I got a phone call from our CEO, Nick Hayek Jr, that he wanted to see me – and he proposed to me the job at Certina.
It’s certainly a big challenge because the Certina I have returned to isn’t the same that I worked for 20 years ago, there’s a lot of changes for sure. E-commerce didn’t exist back then and to be honest even when I was more recently at Jaquet Droz we didn’t do e-commerce or social media and all this stuff. However, it’s been a really good experience to get back into this mid-range price point. It’s such a competitive environment, so it’s a constant challenge, but it’s one that I enjoy. Of course, we had the pandemic, but now we also see that the wider watch industry is slowing down a little bit, so we have to be awake and to make the most of our opportunities.
Certina DS PH200m dive watch
SM: I think in this particular part of the market, you have to be incredibly dextrous and agile in order to meet the changing demands of the consumer.
MA: Yes, but for instance, a new model, it takes about two years of development. So we need to anticipate the trends like you see for other brands. Suddenly they have a product that is very successful and if similar brands want to do the same, that will take some time. It’s about finding the right balance between anticipating the trends and, as a historical brand, remaining true to our values. We’re not a fashion brand that is more closely tied to the trends.
SM: Talk to me about Certina’s thought process behind getting into padel tennis as a commercial partner.
MA: Historically, Certina was very much linked with motor sports, but on the other hand was also involved with protecting marine turtles. I found the message a little bit mixed. On the one hand you want to be eco-friendly and on the other you still like motorsport. When I took over the brand four years ago in the middle of the pandemic, I decided that we should cancel all our partnerships with motorsport and look at other sports that are more aligned with our values. We are a sports brand, so we still definitely wanted to continue with sports, but the question was finding the right opportunity.
As it happens, one of the first trips I made was to Sweden around September 2020, and by chance we passed a number of padel tennis centres during our journey. I have played tennis all my life, so I was aware of the sport and its growth potential, but the scale of its popularity in Sweden took me by surprise. To cut a long story short, after we looked into padel more closely we decided to partner with a chain in Sweden and later began looking at opportunities in other countries.
The wider watch industry is slowing down a little bit, so we have to be awake to the challenges
It’s funny, I remember when I first mentioned padel to some of our territories four years ago, like Germany and the UK, they had no idea about the sport, but step by step, padel tennis has swept across the continent; there’s a new professional circuit, Premier Padel, funded by Qatar Sports Investments, and padel has become the fastest growing sport in Europe.
Certina is linked to the professional side of the game with our sponsorship of Spanish star Marta Ortega, as well as with padel federations in Belgium, in the Netherlands, in Switzerland, in Poland, in Germany. So, we have different partnerships all over Europe in padel and hopefully this is only the beginning.
SM: Could you explain in more detail how you have developed Certina’s strategy over the last few years?
MA: The advantage of starting in the middle of a pandemic, where it was complicated to travel and everything had slowed down, was that I spent a lot of time with my team analysing the products, the sales results and the marketing.
It became clear that we needed to really focus on our marketing activities. I don’t want to criticise what was done in the past because it was another period, but we doubled our efforts in communicating our key pillars, like diving and now padel.
It’s not quite as popular in the UK, but we are also partnered with cross country skiing as the official timekeeper of the FIS Cross Country World Cup, which is very popular in Scandinavia, another very important market for us.
The first strategic decision was to align all our activities, but the next was to look at our development and to renew our focus on the products that are really recognisable for the brand. Rome wasn’t built in a day, so we’re still in the process of streamlining our collections, but step by step we are creating a tighter and more cohesive offering that better represents Certina’s brand values and history. Within the Swatch Group, we have other brands in the same price segments, so for us our focus has to be on what we do best rather than trying to be a generic brand.
Certina DS Action Diver Chrono
SM: I think part of Certina’s value offering is Swatch’s proprietary Powermatic 80 movement. To me, it’s transformed the proposition from being, as you said, a very well-built watch to now also having a top movement inside.
MA: I was at Watches & Wonders a few months ago, and you see some high-end brands that are fighting to get to 60-hour power reserve but for us first 80 is our standard and at a completely different price. For sure, this is the big opportunity for us to be part of the Swatch Group. We have a lot of synergies between the brand with ETA for movement development, but also other activities.
We also have the Nivachron anti-magnetic balance spring that is completely resistant to magnetic fields. So yes, you really get good value for your money.
SM: I think watches like the DS Action GMT that Certina released this year are exactly this point: a mid-range watch that attracts the attention of the buying public. To what do you think it owes its success?
MA: I would say first the design. I mean the GMT continues to be a highly desirable complication, but at the end of the day who really needs a chronograph or a GMT function in the modern age? I don’t know. So, I would say it’s more the design and the fact that it’s a good, reliable, water-resistant product. With the DS Action GMT we tried to create a watch with a traditional sporty GMT composition. We had in the past a GMT with a completely different look, but this recognisable two-tone bezel style has proven to be very popular.
I think that’s the key advantage of the Swatch Group – each brand is really independent
To be honest, we underestimated the potential of the watch, and consumer demand took us by surprise. We have to plan one year in advance for the first production forecast, and I made a mistake in how many watches we should have produced. For sure, it’s a good problem to have being in demand but consumers in these price segments don’t want to wait too long, so we are having to move quickly to keep our clients happy.
We have records of how much we sold of the three-hands DS Action because it’s been in the collection for a couple of years and we also know the performance of our previous GMT model, so we made a kind of a balance, but it was not as high as we sold. But like I say, this is a good problem and one we are quickly remedying.
SM: Do you speak to other Swatch brands to hear where their development is going?
MA: Twice a year all the brands come together, we sit down and we present all our novelties and exchange information that we have in the pipelines to the family and to the owners. Contrary to what you may think, we try to really have our own DNA. I think that’s the key advantage of the group, that each brand is really independent. Of course we collaborate, we collaborate on research and developments for movements and other technologies, but in terms of the products we want to launch, it’s really the brand decision. If we all go in the same direction, then ultimately we end up with the same product.
Certina DS Action GMT
SM: How would you say the needs of the modern consumer are changing? You must have seen a large shift in the two decades you’ve been in the industry…
MA: I think the big challenge these days is how to make the younger generation interested in watches. How do we reach this new audience – and how do we get them excited about our proposition?
We also see the switch from traditional distribution to more online based. Considering our price segment, the digital side of the business is integral to everything we do going forward, so we have been very much developing our online pathways to enable the consumer to order and return a watch, should they choose. For the watch industry, this is still a whole new process that we are learning but we have no choice, we have to go there. For Certina at the moment online represents only a minor part of the wider business but with a very big potential for growth. So that’s one of the key areas of development.
Of course when you look at the reports on watch production overall, the Swiss watch export, the value is still increasing, but the number of units is decreasing, so that’s a concern that we need to keep an eye on. I think brands like Certina and others in this mid-range segment have a major role to play for the whole industry because if you produce only watches for £15-25k there is a big part of the population that will never have the possibility to buy a good Swiss watch. If you lose this mid-range section of the market, over a number of years the desire for a high-end watch will diminish too, so the industry at large will suffer. It’s very important that our brands continue to exist and to make watchmaking attractive and affordable for a big part of the population.
For more information, see certina.co.uk
