Community Stories

It's just a plastic watch

D
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Walrus Walrus
I think it only damages the brand in the fact omega can’t properly handle security. I don’t blame omega for people acting like idiots but I’m seeing stores get sprayed with mace as people flip out about there not being enough plastic watches to go around.

It’s 2026 sell them online and everyone can chill.
Yes.
Sell the pieces of shit online.
That way they can stay where they belong.

Next thing, they'll be referring to Swatch shops as boutiques.
Or are they actually doing that nowadays?
Nothing would surprise me.
 
mrmarty
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This is my opinion.

In a world of where everything has gone tech with analog things are becoming obsolete, the collaborations done by swatch at the time with Omega and Blancpain (albeit the less popular of any collaboration) opened the world of affordable entry point and the “shoe in” into the world of watches.

When a society finds it acceptable to wear an Apple Watch or Garmin in a full suit to a formal function becomes normal, these collaborations don’t devalue a brand based on “a few hundred dollar plastic watch” yet create a new generation of watch enthusiasts.

When you strip away the flippers and hype beasts, you’re left with a generation of people who are comfortable spending $250 $400 on a branded watch. I would like to say many of them get accustomed to these entry branded watches, seek authenticity, and move onto the actual watches from the brand.

I have met many individuals who have worn the moonswatches who have never looked at buying at an actual Speedy, to aspiring or actually acquiring an actual speedy because of simplistic appreciation through research and understanding.

So while many may think it may devalue the brand, I for one think that the hype and free advertising attaching these brands is a free advertisement for a generation who was never curious about the brand in the first place.
 
spacemission
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That's just fine. Where's it going to end, huh Duckie? Executing your neighbor because his dog pisses on your lawn?

Harry was a crack.
 
Jakeys
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Jemagloh Jemagloh
“It’s basically $2,000 over retail, but you can’t get an AP (Audemars Piguet) for less than $2,000, so I think it was a steal,” he said.

This is braindead logic. If I write Audemars Piguet on the leftover iceberg lettuce in my fridge that I have to throw out, will he pay $2000 for it? It's not an AP at all, but it does say AP on it. It's even 1 of 1!

I don't have it handy but I saw a video of a mob literally trampling people through a mall to get to the Swatch store first, like properly dangerous stuff - worse than the first post here's video easily. This hypebeast shit is so sad.

R Richard_C
No it doesn’t. Why pay £££ for an Omega when you can pay £ for something that looks very similar and tells the time just as well. Damages the brand. Rolex don’t do faux Rolex.

The overlap in customer base between the people who would buy a plastic AP lookalike to pretend they had an AP, and people who would buy a real AP, must be vanishingly small. I don't think AP will lose a single Royal Oak sale to a Royal Pop.

What I do think will happen though, is that a cohort of people will see this as devaluing the brand overall and have their opinion of AP negatively impacted. Thus, they'll be less likely to buy AP. Clearly AP are hoping this number is outweighed by the number of new fans who might now think about AP when they're older and have fond memories of their plastic Labubu watch. I don't see it, but what do I know, I'm just some guy on a forum.

What I'm far more certain of is that Swatch is absolutely loving this. They have nothing to lose being associated with AP.
Edited:
 
Dsloan
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On the contrary, this and the moonswatch have seriously piqued an interest in watches among my younger colleagues. I think they'll buy this now, and will buy nicer watches when they have better earning power.
 
adonalsium
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D Duckie
Where's your evidence?
Perhaps pretty freaking successful for Swatch?
Maybe no so successful for Omega.
You can't be serious. You don't need an MBA to understand why one brand benefits from the success of a sister brand.
 
asrnj77
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The sad part is that 95% of those people rushing the stores have no interest at all in the watch. They see an opportunity to make a buck and flip a pocket watch that doesn’t appeal to me. I suppose these can be clipped to your bag like a labubu or whatever else is trending. Swatch said they’ll retail for “several months” but watch them keep selling these for at least a year or more driving demand and second hand prices to the floor.

I still think of the Harrods Tudor that was selling for 60% over retail because everybody thought it was a limited edition that’s now in its 9th year and can be purchased online.
 
Pascal S
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R Richard_C
Damages the brand.
What exactly damages the brand here, if I may ask?

As others have already pointed out, the only tangible damage is with Swatch with their inability to avoid crowd incidents at several of their store locations. In my city, the sale was cancelled because a mob had blocked an entire street. Now, city hall is considering charging Swatch Group for the cost of the cleanup.

On the other hand, I don't buy the argument that what is essentially a plastic toy damages in any way the image of the real thing. Otherwise, Ferrari and other ultra-premium car brands would have forbidden scale models of their cars a long time ago. This Swatch, like a scale model, is a way to channel the desire of thousands of aspirational people who can't afford a genuine AP Royal Oak. Will a small fringe of these people eventually have the means to do so? Probably. And even if not, the whole exercise did wonders for AP's brand recognition among a larger audience
 
theluckyluke
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Dsloan Dsloan
On the contrary, this and the moonswatch have seriously piqued an interest in watches among my younger colleagues. I think they'll buy this now, and will buy nicer watches when they have better earning power.
I genuinely believe this works for the moonswatch, where some people end up upgrading to the real Speedy, but the leap <10k$ let’s say. And far less for some Speedy models.

I am not so sure this will work as much with the RO given the price tag. Given the likely ageing clientele for the RO and a large part of the younger generation not into mechanical watches, I can’t see this as a bad move to raise some interest and get people to know the brand. There is only a handful of morons who actually think it’s an AP and are happy to pay 4k$ because the next cheapest AP is 50k$.

In any case, it’s likely not the last collab.. wondering who comes next!
 
hen
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YOU GOT TO FIGHT,

FOR YOUR RIGHT,

TO PLASTIC!


(sorry, bioceramic)
 
Jakeys
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Pascal S Pascal S
On the other hand, I don't buy the argument that what is essentially a plastic toy damages in any way the image of the real thing.

I think less of AP for agreeing to do it. 😜

Anyway, I've seen a real world use case for it now at least.

1779088835103.webp
 
S
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Ever since the MoonSwatch appeared, to me the collabs to the real watches, are like this:
bmw-model.webp


to this:
bmw-real.webp


It is a fan-item, and is not hurting the image of the real thing, as it is clearly not a substitution.
 
D
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spacemission spacemission
That's just fine. Where's it going to end, huh Duckie? Executing your neighbor because his dog pisses on your lawn?

Harry was a crack.
Yeah, and he hates everybody all the same.
No favourites.
Just like me.
 
Waltesefalcon
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It looks like Oklahoma City's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander just won his second NBA MVP award and bought each of his teammates an AP Royal Oak. I bet if he had known that AP was going to make a Swatch watch, he would have passed on that.
 
redpcar
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bsowers34 bsowers34
I'm sure that the fakes will be all over the place very soon too.
I did a brief search and haven't found any. Guessing the automatic Chinese movement will be more reliable than the Sistem 51 ::stirthepot::
 
ErichKeane
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As the above have said, this doesn't damage AP in any way (the same way the MoonSwatch and Swatch Fifty Fathoms only HELPED Blancpain), and is making Swatch relevant again as well.

From Swatch's perspective: They sell expensive plastic quartz watches that are in basically every way worse than a Casio/etc (or any of the other dozen of quartz watch manufacturers. Other than 'they are quirky!' there hasn't been a reason to even THINK about Swatch's name in a few decades. They didn't have a hold on the higher end quartz (Citizen, Bulova, etc), and charged too much to compete at the low end. So Swatch was/is in this weird irrelevant middle-ground of "high school girls who want a watch with weird colors"). And even that was being taken away by Apple watches.

The Moonswatch got people actually TALKING about Swatch for the first time I can recall in my adult-lifetime.

From Omega's perspective, the Moonswatch hype, visibility, and popularity was a boon. We all talk about how rare people notice our nice watches. THIS is a problem with the younger generation, non-smart watches are less popular with Millennials & younger than ever before. The generations that grew up with cell phones in our pockets and computers in front of our faces, never really saw the need for watches.

The MoonSwatch added an interesting mix of noticability, coolness, and HERITAGE in a way that Swatch hadn't done in the past. Moonswatch's obnoxious colors are a feature in that regard, they are noticable in a "hey, what is that on your wrist?!" kinda thing. And getting peoople talking about the MoonSwatch is good for both brands.

ALL of the above they hoped to re-capture with the Fifty Fathoms (and I don't know how successful that was?), and again with this AP, which is part of why they are doing this goofy hangs-off-your-purse design. its about getting people to notice to keep AP/Swatch relevant in a newer generation.
 
Archer
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Pascal S Pascal S
As others have already pointed out, the only tangible damage is with Swatch with their inability to avoid crowd incidents at several of their store locations. In my city, the sale was cancelled because a mob had blocked an entire street. Now, city hall is considering charging Swatch Group for the cost of the cleanup.
Meanwhile, CEO's to their underlings...

"Swatch has produced a product so popular that they had to use police for crowd control and shut down the sale. How can we genergate this kind of "damage" to our reputation?"

Outside of the butt hurt folks on forums, this is basically nothing but good publicity.
 
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