Editorial All About You

Enough about watches for now — how about taking a closer look at the WorldTempus reader of 2020?

Every so often, I like to step back and examine the most popular articles that we’ve published throughout the year, both the most read and the most liked articles. It allows us to understand what we’ve done well, and what we should be doing more of. More importantly, it allows us to understand what you guys want to see on WorldTempus. It tells us what you’re interested in, the type of content you appreciate, it tells us who the WorldTempus reader is. So, at the end of 2020, a most unusual year indeed, what do the most popular articles on WorldTempus reveal about you, our audience?

Overall, our interview articles are high achievers in the numbers game, with profiles and Q&A pieces doing extremely well both in terms of viewership and likes. Something we started doing this year, as a fun little exercise designed to give you guys a more intimate peek into watch brands and the people behind them, was the Ten Minutes Q&A series. All we wanted to do was inject a little more personality than usual into the conventional CEO interview, but it ended up being way more successful than we anticipated. Now, I could be wrong, but this suggests to me that the majority of WorldTempus readers — in other words, you — don’t want rote questions and rehearsed corporate answers. You want individuality, you want to see the humanity in the brands you admire, you want to have fun and get to know the people behind the watches in the same way you’d get to know a new friend.

This isn’t to say that no-frills, just-the-facts biographies don’t hold any interest for you. I note with great pleasure that the most popular personality-centric article we’ve published this year is the profile of Zenith CEO Julien Tornare, one of the smartest and warmest people I know in this industry. I couldn’t be more excited to share Zenith’s 2021 plans with you guys (when the time comes), so I think it’s great so many of you are already into this brand.

Articles about the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève also do far better than average. This, combined with the above observation, tells me that our watch-loving audience isn’t just focused on new watches and what to buy and where to buy it. You care about what’s actually going on in this industry, just as people who love fashion also love to read about institutional news and about what goes on in their beloved couture houses. As someone who is very much invested (mentally and emotionally) in the wellbeing of the watch industry, having an audience with a multi-dimensional interest in this world is something that makes me very happy.

One last observation for now — the most popular watch-centric articles feature all the usual brands that you might easily guess, but there was one exceptionally well-received article in 2020 that didn’t exactly feature an all-time best-selling or ubiquitous watch. Our report on the Jacob & Co. Bugatti Chiron took one of the top spots in our 2020 audience’s choice leaderboard of articles, and this is cause for considerable optimism. Despite predictions that economic slowdowns inevitably lead to conservative spending, it’s clear that wildly creative watchmaking still has a key part to play in capturing the imaginations of horological enthusiasts everywhere.

This is what we’ve learned from your reading choices of 2020. Prioritise the human touch in everything. Keep your eyes on the brands that have steadily displayed signs of growth and potential dynamism. And never settle for the quotidian when your business lies in selling dreams. These are the things that you, our audience, believe, and these are the values that will continue to drive everything we create at WorldTempus.