There is empirical evidence that the MoonSwatch collaboration boosted interest in and sales of Omega’s Speedmaster. Swatch Group says this is proof that turning its back on global shows like Baselworld and Watches & Wonders has done nothing to dampen enthusiasm for its flagship brand. Nonsense, suggests WATCHPRO columnist Robin Swithinbank. MoonSwatch may be the biggest watch launch of the decade — achieved with next to no marketing spend — but it would be foolish to conflate crushes outside Swatch shops for a £207 watch with the end of time for trade fairs.
A colleague shared the popular theory with me just recently that the MoonSwatch hullabaloo, a classic of the fashionable scream-and-shout mega-drop genre, proved just how little the watch industry needs a watch fair.
Brands with a bit of digital savvy can generate their own buzz, was the gist, and for a lot less dough, if only they’d wake up and try.
Make some nice vids, stick a few quid behind social, chuck some product at influencers, and bosh, you’ve got Soviet-style bread queues around every street corner.
Oh, those silly, backward watch brands and their multi-million dollar watch fair booths.
A fine theory. If only it wasn’t wrong.
The MoonSwatch might have been the biggest moment in modern watch history (although calling it the industry’s iPhone moment is desperate), but it doesn’t mark the beginning of the end for the watch fair. Not at all.
What is less wrong is to conflate the two events. Swatch Group chief exec Nick Hayek, his antipathy towards the watch fair apparently undimmed, chose to drop his plastic – pardon me, bio-ceramic – Speedmaster in the week running up to Watches and Wonders.
Mr Hayek chose his timing well. There was as much talk of the whys and wherefores of the marriage between Swatch and Omega at the show as there was of a back-to-front (or was it upside down?) Rolex.
No mean feat given one was backed by an enterprise with the budget of a small nation; the other by a few teenagers on Snapchat. He made his point.
And it’s a good one. Ever more, brands run their own retailer operations, talk directly to their consumers, and can indeed ramp up a product launch story without the help of a high-tariff, centralised watch convention. Watch fairs are a waste of time and money, by that token.
But then again, how reductive.
We can watch Cannes Festival movies on our sofas; get Michelin-starred chefs to send us ingredients to cook in our kitchens; and put Damien Hirsts in our hallways.
But the experience of these things is magnified many times over at the festival, the restaurant and the gallery, just as is that of handling a fine watch in the decadent environs of a watch fair or store, perhaps even in the company of its maker.
It’s all part of the deal, isn’t it? If not, then why stop with the fair? Who needs a watch showroom? Store the watches in a barn and just pop them in the post whenever a payment goes through. Much cheaper than a marble staircase and a security detail.
Again, nonsense. Or at least, it is when you’re talking about a nonsensical product like a luxury watch. Fine if you’re pitching a fratboy movie. Fine if you’re ordering from your local Raj. And yes, fine if you’re dishing out colourful plastic watches. It’s good enough for Hong Kong.
But we’re in a different league here. Luxury watches are an absurd exaggeration of an everyday object.
Part of the tapestry of their existence is in the theatre, in the man being fired out of a canon, in the choir lifting the roof off the ruddy cathedral.
Let’s look at it the other way around.
MoonSwatch will be remembered for years. It was the biggest single watch release in decades, perhaps ever.
But it’ll be an isolated case, and because of its broad appeal one that will have little bearing on luxury mechanical watchmaking.
Why? Three reasons.
First, and all things being relative, because at £207 it was – and remains – cheap. High-street fodder, fast-fashion, distinctly non-luxury. I state that as fact rather than criticism.
Secondly, because it took the highly unusual step of making one of watchmaking’s defining designs accessible. Only when Rolex teams up with Timex to make a plastic, quartz Sub will we have a comparable.
And thirdly, because it promised huge profits to grubby opportunists.
Bar the shady profiteering parallels, that makes it of little relevance to the luxury watch business.
The Primark-sale pavement scrum sparked by MoonSwatch-mania and fuelled by frenzied flippers hell-bent on intimidation and scoring a quick buck was a bad look, but not one we’re ever likely to see repeated for a luxury watch.
MoonSwatch-mania was fleeting, too. The nature of a drop is that it’s quickly replaced by something else and by the end of May, Google MoonSwatch searches were at 10 per cent of their peak.
Most of those on a mission to Venus or Mars in March are now thinking about sneakers. Or what Ed Sheeran’s doing this weekend.
Fairs such as Watches and Wonders raise the thermostat, only on a much longer burn.
This year’s event was part of a cycle that, bar the pandemic hiatus, has been steadily building for decades.
It elevated the core temperature of an entire industry, and not just of one brand, product or customer type. And without throwing a single punch.
Don’t take my word for it. Organisers say that two months after the fair, Watches and Wonders’ digital reach had surpassed 350 million.
Panerai’s chief exec Jean-Marc Pontroué claims his social interactions were up 17 per cent during the fair compared to last year’s soul-destroying online-only event.
Brian Duffy, chief exec of the Watches of Switzerland Group, says his customers were tapped into the fair, with pre-orders coming in left and right.
MoonSwatch is a great story and great for the watch category.
And it proves beyond all doubt, were there any left, that a brand can make a lot of noise by itself.
But we didn’t need MoonSwatch to tell us that.
Audemars Piguet, Richard Mille and Breitling have been taking care of that for years already.
But we did need Watches and Wonders to remind us of the power watch fairs still have to slingshot watch culture forward, and to put to bed once and for all the theory that the industry would be just as well off without them.
PRESS REVIEW OF THE MOONSWATCH
What this release has taught me is that watches still have magic – the ability to drum up excitement the way Apple can with a new iPhone. MoonSwatch represents a new day in the ongoing history of horology. But the question remains what that new day means. Is the MoonSwatch good for watches, or is it bad for watches? We’ll take it a step further and say: It’s great for watches.
The MoonSwatch works for a number of reasons. First, it’s a fun reinterpretation of a watchmaking icon – one of the few actually worthy of this overused label. It’s just a fun watch that is amusing to wear because it allows us to look at something we’ve seen countless times in new light and, in fact, a new texture. The way the Omega Moonwatch is presented with colorful cases and dials and straps is just, there’s no other word for it, huge fun
The MoonSwatch is yet to go on sale online – something Swatch said would happen after the botched launch – and stores rarely have much in the way of stock, despite assurances that production will not be limited. The whole situation is angering watch fans who, quite rightly, might have assumed a month was enough time for supply to meet demand.
People will likely ask whether or not Omega had a choice in partaking in this collaboration – and it’s a question Omega CEO Aeschlimann is happy to answer. “If this would have only been a recycled swatch, or the normal shape of this watch, and just putting a name on it, I would have been totally against it,” says Aeschlimann. “What we’ve been able to do that by having Gregory Kissling [head of product management at Omega] very much involved, it’s like adding that with a new shape, new dials, everything is new in that. It’s even a bioceramic material that has never been done. So once you see the product and hear the whole story, you realise why we have done this.”
No matter how you look at it or want to buy it, for Speedmaster fans, whether they have Speedies in their watch boxes or just desire to get one someday, the Omega x Swatch BioCeramic Speedmaster MoonSwatches are a worthwhile pickup. They are a new take on the iconic design, an unexpected detour on a historical path that opens up the watch to a whole new market and fanbase. And, the colors are just rad.
The moonswatch is great but I must say that trying to obtain one is absolutely ridiculous. The secret restock availability is also ridiculous but I kinda get it(to avoid those resellers). But the 2 closest Swatch stores that are on the list are 6hrs away from me. No one at the retail stores answers their phone. I mean if I lived closer to a chosen Swatch store sure I would try to check daily for availability, but can’t do that 6hrs away. Kind of disheartening for watch collectors/enthusiast.