Audemars Piguet gets Prime slot on global streaming platform

It starts with Grammy Award-winning musician John Mayer introducing Ilaria Resta to the stage at Dubai Watch Week in the style of a well-groomed David Letterman giving an opening monologue on The Late Show.

The set is designed to highlight Audemars Piguet’s 150th anniversary, and the brand’s CEO is there to present the new RD#5 Royal Oak Extra-Thin Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon Chronograph to an expectant crowd.

But, before we get to that watch, and in true 2020s documentary style, we first take a flash back through history.

Investment in the Hollywood production values and celebrity frontman are required to make this documentary fit for streaming, and not just on Youtube.

It is made by Terminal 9 Studios as the latest promotional documentary in a series titled Inside the Dream.

Previous episodes by the French production house have looked into Bulgari, Dior and Mandarin Oriental hotels.

Terminal 9 describes itself as a TV producer for brand stories and worldwide impact.

In the case of Audemars Piguet, the brand story is told in ultra-glossy style over 53 minutes.

Terminal 9 is also the distributor, and has secured placement on Amazon Prime and Canal+ streaming services where it is listed as a documentary, with no mention of it being a #advert.

To be fair, so many documentaries these days are simply promotional videos. Megan, Duchess of Sussex, and Victoria Beckham have turned this into a new, highly commercial, art form.

Amazon Prime’s teaser for the video makes it sound like a cross between a Dan Brown epic and an episode of Drive to Survive.

“A secret and codified world, haute horology rarely invites cameras behind the scenes. For the first time, Audemars Piguet opens its doors, unveiling the creation of a unique timepiece [the RD#5]. In the heart of the Vallée de Joux, designers, artisans, watchmakers and engineers come together to push the limits of their craft and bring an exceptional watch to life,” it promises.

Some of the best stuff in the film will be, to some, dry and technical: a discussion on a new rack and pinion system to activate the RD#5’s chronograph function, for example.

Revolution magazine founder Wei Koh, who has his own, more editorially-led Man of the Hour, documentary series on Discovery Channel, pops up in the AP show to explain the history and genius of the new mechanism.

Ilaria Resta came to Audemars Piguet from outside the watch industry with a promise to put storytelling and human connections at the heart of its future.

She provides the voice over for a walk through 150 years of history, starting with its founders, journeying through the archives in Le Brassus, and reminding viewers that the brand remains in the hands of direct descendants of Jules Louis Audemars (1851–1918) and Edward Auguste Piguet (1853–1919).

Throughout, the documentary is punctuated with sequences on the development of the RD#5, and how a century and half’s watchmaking experience, expertise and evolution has been distilled into the timepiece.

Half way through, John Mayer introduces a second musical AP brand ambassador, Raye, to bring more star power to the doc.

Last year, the two artists collaborated on an original song, Suzanne. She sang it at the Montraux Jazz Festival, which is sponsored by AP.

There is some gorgeous cinematography showing the Vallée de Joux’s natural beauty, and a brief history of how French farmers settled there and started to make clocks during the winter when the ground was under feet of snow.

This is linked into the art and craft of AP watches: their dial designs, the surfaces and angles of their cases, etc.

Behind the scenes at AP’s factories (the brand prefers terms like ateliers, workshops or manufacture), there is little sign of any of the highly automated production lines of machinery that manufacture almost all of the watches’ components.

Instead, we get cuts of watchmakers in lab coats representing the human touch. If Terminal 9 could have found bearded elves sweating over mechanical marvels with a heartbeat, I am sure they would have.

The closing shot is of the RD#5 watch, complete and shop-ready, one of a limited edition of 150 and a reminder of the film’s purpose.

In the new world, where the lines been between journalism and advertising have been blurred, the film is worth 53 minutes of any watch lover’s time.

For Audemars Piguet, it is a marketing project costing in the region of £1 million, according to media reporters estimating the cost of Terminal 9’s productions.