- Mr. Strehl, the company that produces RADO watches today, was founded in 1917, and the RADO brand was registered in 1957. Currently, RADO watches are known all over the world, primarily due to their surfaces that cannot be scratched. What is the brand offering to today's customers?
- Sometimes it is very difficult to answer a question. We have done something in the past, and it has brought us incredible success. But that was fifty years ago. As you correctly noted, in 1957 the RADO brand appeared, and in 1962, the world's first model of our DiaStar watch, made of material resistant to scratches and other mechanical damage, which made RADO famous all over the world. It was a significant year and an iconic watch in the history of the brand. Watches that are fundamentally different from everything that was presented on the market in the 1950s. Then all the watches were round, flat, and mostly made of gold. And the company RADO took courage and released a watch that was not like the others.
RADO does not have such a long history as other watch brands, such as Breget or Omega, which are older than 150 years. And from the very beginning, we developed our brand in a completely new way. They tried to position themselves in the market due to the uniqueness of their products. And for this, we must thank the then leaders of RADO, whose courage allowed the company to occupy its own market niche.
At the very beginning, it was not easy for us, because the market was not ready to accept RADO watches. But self-confidence and even some insolence ultimately bore fruit. Consumers believed in our concept. And this has become the basis of our culture of innovation and the search for original solutions that the RADO brand is known to this day.
RADO culture is not a blind imitation of existing trends, but the creation of their own trends, the embodiment of their own ideas, the formation of new trends. It is this culture that does not allow us to look around and watch all the time what happened in the world of hours one hundred and fifty years ago. On the contrary, we go forward and try to anticipate the future. New technologies in watchmaking are usually not innovative changes in movements. Of course, in watches such as RADO, Breget and Omega, the quality of the mechanisms plays an important role, but still RADO pays more attention to appearance - bracelet, case and so on. Speaking of this, of course, I cannot but note that we use the most high-precision mechanisms from ETA in our watches, but we do not invest our time, our efforts and our ideas in creating mechanisms. We use ready-made.
Last year we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the RADO brand, but none of our advertisements indicated that the brand is 50 years old. We believe that this is not in line with our philosophy. We used these wonderful 50 years for the benefit of our company and in order to move forward another 50 years and be as successful and unique as half a century ago. The philosophy of the RADO brand is to get ahead of time, to be an innovator in technology, design and marketing. Our motto is "Time changes everything except RADO." Therefore, the company boldly goes for experiments, both with form and with the content of watches.
- Since the moment your first ceramic collection appeared on the markets, it has not lost ground. Has something new appeared in your piggy bank of innovative materials for making watches?
- Of course, we always work on a combination of three basic things: the design, materials and comfort of our watches for those who wear them. If we talk about materials, then many more of them we have to discover and try to put into practice. But we cannot use any material for the manufacture of watches. And that is understandable. Indeed, the main material of the RADO watch is really heavy-duty ceramics used in the construction of spacecraft.
Of course, at the very beginning, carbides and tungsten-based carbides are the main material for watches. Then came the era of high-tech "space" ceramics. These materials have been registered in watchmaking thanks to RADO. At the top of the pyramid of hardness is a watch made of lanthanum and Vision I.
Among the materials presented is not so much choice. If you look at modern alloys or synthetics, then you are unlikely to find even a dozen new materials. Therefore, all that we play today is colors. As you can see, our collections have black, platinum, pink, white, turquoise, blue and many other watches, plus their most diverse combinations.
At the dawn of brand development, we took a very important, in my opinion, step that took RADO far ahead. All our watches were polished with the highest quality. However, not everyone liked it. Many said I like RADO, but I do not really like polished watches. We did some research and released models with a matte satin finish. But the rest of the "proprietary" characteristics, such as scratch resistance, have remained unchanged. This is with regard to our latest achievements, but we continue our research in the search for new solutions and combinations.
- Any new watch model is first born in the imagination of designers, then appears in their sketches, and only then is it made. Where are you looking for new talents that can create new concepts for RADO, and are there any immigrants from Russia among your designers?
- In fact, there are three sources for finding new talent. Firstly, we grow our own personnel. Today a unique designer works at RADO - this is an Italian woman who has been living in Switzerland for many years. Secondly, we have brand managers who are not designers, but who also sometimes have original and interesting ideas. In addition, as part of a large group of companies, we have our own division, which develops designs for different brands within our group. And the third way is, of course, looking for designers on the side. For example, our ceramic collection was designed by a stunning German designer who originally worked for the Porsche auto concern.
Today, when we look to the future of RADO, we would like to attract famous names and famous watchmakers such as Pierre Morisson to work. He thinks and creates in full accordance with the philosophy of RADO and has similar goals to us. He is currently working with RADO. He has already created a new packaging design, which will appear at the beginning of this summer. In addition, he has already begun to develop a new model line of watches, which will be launched in 2009. Although, it may be other celebrities whose names are known not only in the professional environment, but also among the general public. I fully admit that this could be the Russians. I know that in Russia there are many gifted and talented people. Therefore, who knows.
- How do you assess the position of RADO in the UAE market and, in particular, in Dubai compared to other brands?
- In Basel, in 2008, we presented two new products. The first is a multi-colored RADO watch, many of which were packed in boxes with Swiss chocolate. In a word, there were many ideas and all were wonderful. The second is a combination of black and gold. At some point, we realized that black and gold complement each other perfectly and are at the peak of today's fashion trends.
We believe that our new model of unique white gold watches in the Ceramic collection, presented by us in Basel 2008, and which will appear on the markets in October and November of this year, will make a real sensation. It will be the same ceramic RADO, only not black, but gold.
As for the UAE and Dubai markets, the RADO brand is doing very well. We are a global brand and manufacture watches that are successfully sold in all countries of the world. Here, the purchasing power is very high, although the country itself is small, and we are impressed that our models here are willingly bought not only by local residents, but also by a huge army of tourists, including from Russia, Ukraine, countries of Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East East. Everyone knows that Dubai is one big duty free shop.
This is the international image of this city. And people from different countries know that RADO is stylish, fashionable and of high quality. And they don’t care where to buy. In addition, in the bowels of new watches, which are almost indistinguishable from the models of previous generations of RADO, more and more technological innovations appear. Therefore, a RADO watch is always a “casket with a secret”, and with guaranteed accuracy, always and everywhere.
We are very pleased with our many years of cooperation with the exclusive distributors of the brand in the UAE - Oriental Stores. I can say that I personally work with the third generation of the owners of this company. In addition to thanks, I note that Oriental Stores is one of the best distribution companies in the world.
- And what is the situation in the markets of Russia and the CIS countries?
- The most popular watch model that we sell in the markets of Russia and the CIS is Sintra. Integral is in second place, and interest in Ceramica collections is growing very seriously. The tastes of customers in different countries, in fact, differ little from each other. It’s just that in Asia they like small watches, in Europe or the USA, on the contrary, the larger the watch, the better. The structure of RADO collections is not as strict as that of most Swiss brands. RADO strives to show all facets of watch design. And this is appreciated by Russian buyers. We offer them both rectangular Integral, and oval Ovation; original round DiaStar and futuristic Xeramo and Cerix. Well, the most unusual ones are probably eSenza, a watch without a crown. Russian buyers love watches with diamonds on the dials, and we also have such models. The RADO brand has received many awards. Moreover, almost all of them are for achievements in the field of design.
- Which RADO model do you personally like the most?
“I am impressed by the chronographs from the Ceramica collection, such as the Chrono Sintra.” This is a very beautiful, comfortable, and at the same time, surprisingly practical watch. I travel a lot, so the functions embedded in our chronograph, such as several time zones, an alarm clock, a calendar and others that appear in the digital window of the dial, help me on the road. This is a fantastic watch. All options are switched at the touch of a button, and if I do not need any of them at the moment, I turn off the digital display and ... Before you again is a simple black dial with arrows.
And by the way, I have been wearing some watches from the ceramic collection for more than 15 years, others are the 2008 model. Try to distinguish between them. It is unlikely that you will succeed. This is the main secret of RADO - even after many years of wearing, the appearance of the watch remains as if it had just left the assembly line. And the model does not look outdated, and the complete absence of any scratches does not give out an old watch in it.
It’s just that larger watches are in fashion today, but small ones are also not going to give up their positions, therefore, someone who does not know for sure will not be able to distinguish the new product from the representative of the previous generation. But one thing is clear - the RADO watch brings constant joy to its owners. And I say many thanks to all the fans of our brand. Follow the news of RADO, we will surprise you more than once.
