No time for advertising
Watch advertising works differently than marketing for mass-market products. Above all, a watch sells a myth. But anyone who can afford a watch costing 20,000 francs is unlikely to spend much time on advertising campaigns.
I feel sorry for the poor guy who spends 20,000 francs to be able to tell the time. That's why you have a cell phone," Jean-Claude Biver once said in a speech. The former Swatch manager, who later made the luxury brand Hublot big with his own company, not only knows what watches are for. He also knows what makes his customers tick: "In the luxury market, you can see that someone who spends 4,000 francs on a watch is unlikely to buy a second one in the same year. The customer doesn't come back even in the third year." Someone who buys a watch for 20,000 francs and likes it, "buys at least three or four more after three months," reveals Biver.
You don't learn that in marketing school. And that's why advertising for watches usually looks like it comes from a completely different era. With a watch in the luxury segment, people want to afford something different. They want to fulfill a dream and buy a status symbol to do so.
"A watch shows who I am, what upbringing I have, what culture and what personality," is the most important insight of watch advertising strategists. Image is therefore the driving factor behind the mechanics of the watch market. This is also demonstrated by the campaigns that are awarded annually in October at the "Prix Suisse de la Campagne Horlogère de l'Année". The competition organized by the Ringier publication Montre Passion chose the "L'instant Chanel" campaign - with stylish black and white images of exclusive moments - as the winner for 2014. The winner in the film category was "Don't crack under pressure" by Tag Heuer - with images of personalities successfully mastering situations in sport, on stage, painting or cooking in a gourmet restaurant.
build up. To this end, he also has a brand ambassador such as Pelé appear. The IWC label relies more exclusively on stars as brand ambassadors, for example Emily Blunt and Christoph Waltz. Formula 1 regularly serves as the backdrop for the dream worlds of watch advertising.
Everything is experienced and decided at the POS
The staging of such a prestigious world culminates each January at the watch fair in Geneva. For this event, where selected luxury labels celebrate their new products, decorative structures costing several million are erected for a few days. However, it is not the end customer who gets to see them, but only invited retailers. In Geneva, they are wooed with exclusive events where retailers can actually forget about time for a few hours in the company of illustrious guests from the world of glamor and concentrate solely on understanding dreams. Another mechanic of watch advertising shows that a potential customer is "advertised" primarily at the POS.
Selective distribution is the type of distribution channel. The large luxury watch groups want to be represented worldwide by their own boutiques for their flagship brands and thus be perceived as uniform and authentic. Smaller brands are also increasingly striving for their own forms of distribution. With these, a brand can create its own environment, present its image anywhere in the world and showcase its complete range.
Nevertheless, the masses are not completely ignored in watch advertising. Once again, it is Jean-Claude Biver who brings together two seemingly completely incongruous worlds for his Hublot. The luxury brand already sponsored the popular Euro 08 football event in 2008 and the European Championships in Ukraine in 2012. But who would buy a 20,000 franc watch in the stadium there? "The myth of a brand is not created where it is sold," says top salesman Biver. And he can prove his theory: Every child in the favelas of Rio knows the Ferrari brand. For millions of TV viewers, this car is a dream. But hardly anyone can afford such a car. "The dream is all the more fulfilled for those who have really made it."
Andreas Panzeri
