Are watch events losing their interest?

Is the growing event number affecting how brands perceive the importance of watch events and fairs?

I think we have to start this topic by analyzing the current situation of the Swiss watch market.

The watch market felt a downturn for multiple years where some brands even disappeared or are now in a deep sleep situation.

Since 2014 that we've been noticing a steady growth on the general line of the market, this led to a re-interpretation of the commercial and marketing strategy in many brands, which resulted in a new approach on how they want to capture the attention of their target and how to drive a bigger return.

There are several aspects that lead to a mess on their investment strategy: (That also lead to a loss of investment on events)

Such as, the fact that due to multiple events during the year brands are now carefully selecting which ones to sponsor/attend.

The more you fragment the market the less is the profit and return, it's simple.

Private events and boutiques

Brands are also misguided towards a concern for more profit while reaching to the wrong "bridge" to create interest in their audience.

They're also guiding their efforts into pleasing celebrities and VIPs and this ends up hurting their relationship with their community and fans.

When & How is this happening?

In private events made by the brands themselves for example.

Most held in boutiques or retailers stores.

Why are brands doing this?

This happens due to the lower cost when making booths and stands which require their construction and assembling on site.

The solution that brands found was to host these events on their boutiques since there they already have their custom decoration.

Badly done partnerships

One of the most hated partnerships was WatchAnish with Vacheron Constantin.

Imagine this, WatchAnish is a lifestyle/style/watches brand/page and Vacheron Constantin is arguably one of the most traditional and prestigious manufacturers of haute horlogerie.

Do these two brands match? I think not.

I'm not a purist, but when working with several "tribes" of clients (purists, millenials, enthusiasts, etc) you have to analyse your segment and target so you can understand how you can preserve you purists loyal to the brand and at the same time try to to invest on new ways to sell the brand and your watches.

If most of your return comes from collectors who are purists it would be better not to make a partnership with a mainstream blogger who's so strongly connected with a mainstream watch-related blog who diversifies its topics with lifestyle, traveling and style.

Conclusion on these partnerships:

Partnerships, if not planned well, can hurt even the strongest brands.

Depending on the brand the initiation on the digital world has to be done gradually to better educate their audiences.

Brand Ambassadors that you can't relate to the brand

How many times you find yourself asking, as a connoisseur or enthusiast, "Why in the world is that celebrity an ambassador of this brand?"

This happens a lot to me, specially if we're speaking about a traditional brand.

Why does this celebrity, that its not relatable to any kind of watch-related subject matter, associated with a brand that only collectors and watch-related people know?

Sadly most brands only care about their general public, which is most o the time the main buyers of their models. And what is the main influence on the general public?trends started by celebrities.

Conclusion on the effects of this strategy:

So, for brands, the perfect bridge to this public is automatically, celebrities.

Apart from this strategy hurting their relationship with their loyal clients and communities it also transposes that brands don't care enough about this interested individuals that are watch enthusiasts.

As you can see the problem of losing interest in events is also affected by the other multiple problems featured above.

To say it in resume the solution wouldn't be to implement a totally new strategy based on the experiential marketing on their stands and booths on events.

The solution would feature an improvement of their current strategy and a test implementation of a new strategy based on digital marketing, lateral marketing, and experiential marketing. All this applied to their general way of thinking, and finally this would lead to a better acknowledgment of the importance of being present in events.

What do you think of the current event situation? Are enthusiasts and brands still interest? Or is one of this sides starting to move away from events?

Hope you enjoyed the article!

See you all in BaselWorld!

(If you want to have a chat in Basel please send me an email at daily.diogocosta@gmail.com)

Accurately yours,

Diogo Costa