ice-watch

ICE-WATCH®, a dream come true
A little watch sets out to conquer the world...

The ICE-WATCH® brand will soon be the leading brand in its segment. These little watches with their vibrant colours, chosen from the seemingly infinite choice offered by the polymer industries, and their perfectly crafted packaging, are becoming more popular by the minute with hundreds of thousands of consumers. We consider that 3 million watches will be sold by the end of 2011, with 250,000 watches being sold per month, at a rate of 5 watches per minute. How nice it is to be able to enhance our leisure and sports activities and our trendy evenings with a choice of perfectly matching watches, at minimal cost. The company is making its mark every day by proving that it is ready to please by permanently adapting to our ever changing world, at a starting price of €59.

Today, a massive production process is underway. In two years, Jean-Pierre Lutgen has obtained an exclusive distribution contract with more than 90 countries (Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Australia). It boasts 5,000 sales outlets in jewellers, design stores, fashion boutiques, 150,000 visits per month to www.ice-watch.com with 9 pages per visit, 900,000 pages viewed, an average time of 4 minutes 30 per visit, 130,000 fans on FACEBOOK in the beginning of year 2011, 25 international partners and 5,000 direct or indirect partners: the ICE-WATCH® phenomenon is literally exploding.

The ICE-WATCH® products have had a retail presence since 2007. The idea came from its creator, the Belgian Jean-Pierre Lutgen, who through numerous trips in Asia and a network of trustworthy and reliable partners developed an ingenious idea and launched a global concept with its own visual, tactile, aural and even olfactory identity, showcasing a watch that is fun, hip, intergenerational, available in a complete range of colours, presented in a perfectly matching money-bank case, with a fine tuned and daring marketing strategy. In demand throughout the world both with the media and prestigious educational institutions, our self-made-man enjoys explaining how his dream has become a reality.

Established throughout Europe, the brand was designed in Bastogne in Belgium, with creations whose style is a reflection of European glamour. The movements come from Japan, they are produced and assembled in Shenzhen in China and distributed from Hong-Kong. Each distributor has market exclusivity and a considerable degree of freedom of action, within certain strict guidelines: for example, the way the ICE-WATCH® trademark is written must be scrupulously observed.

Since starting out in this very protectionist sector, Jean-Pierre Lutgen has achieved amazing feats, driving forward his off- beat and extraordinary vision, this reworking of the classic watch into one with a new energy and a futurist sex-appeal, one which adds a totally new chapter to the rich heritage of watch making history. It’s for this reason that Belgium, aware of this story, wanted to honour the ICE-WATCH® company, by presenting it at the Shanghai World Exhibition.
www.ice-watch.com


JEAN-PIERRE LUTGEN

Grandson of Auguste Lutgen, son of Guy and father of Oscar, Jeanne and Mathilde. I studied Public and International Affairs at the Catholic University of Louvain. I founded the company Tonton Lulu immediately after finishing my military service. We sold lapel pins and promotional items, in “Nutella®” jars for example, and watches... We were renowned for our ability to launch new items onto the market very rapidly.

The arrival of the internet in 2000 damaged our market. Five years ago, in order to counter this, we opened an office in Hong Kong, always looking for good prices. At this time, “Armstrong” style silicone wristbands were selling well because we offered a range of bright colours that matched our clients’ specifications at tempting prices.

Just like discovering a future star, in 2006 I found the watch that would become the ICE-WATCH® standard. We broke down the watch into ten parts so that we could choose different colours for each part. As we had been producing tailor made products for a number of years, I will give just one client as an example, Michelin Formula 1, and as I had been fascinated by the retail sector for a long time, I thought that I should create a genuinely off- beat product that would enable us to bounce back. Hence the coloured, reasonably priced watch that can be geared to your activities and that you can collect thanks to its fun and stackable packaging. Our success is growing as a watch is a fashion accessory, a badge of identity and an impulse buy. Moreover, this one may be bought by a large number of people, from the very young to the more mature.

www.ice-watch.com