I did my best to try and track this down but didn't have any luck, anyone know for sure if the strap can be 'easily' swapped? I have a friend that is going to try and pick one up for me, though I anticipate it'll be a wasted effort.

 

Well, the question about whether it's "official 'Speedmaster' " with that branding on the physical watch, not the retail location.

 

This is moonshot level marketing.

I argue that ‘Speedmaster’ has seen a colossal upsurge in use over the past few days, perhaps greater than Swatch Group could have imagined, or, most likely, exactly as they planned.

Certainly, there are many for whom this watch ticks requisite boxes; my wife, for example. She prefers this to my Speedy. “They’re cute…”. Yet the brilliance here is founded on younger audiences; ones who will spend the next 2 decades dreaming of and saving for a Moonwatch. That kind of brand perception and mindshare is golden.

 

Me!

 

It took me years to pull the trigger on getting a Speedmaster. I did get to enjoy some excellent manual and automatic watches along the way, but I would've surely sprung for a Quartz MoonSwatch if it was available--that might have led me to get a Speedmaster even faster.

 

Moonshot level marketing would be taking the Tiffany Blue Uranus MoonSwatch to space. Bring it back. Put it to Phillips as spaceflown Swatch and bid it to $3m for charity.

 

But the real question is, how old does a MoonSwatch have to be before it's considered a Vintage MoonSwatch?

I still don't see any information on Speedmaster 101: https://speedmaster101.com/

 

Thanks for the idea

[Proceeds to register new domain, moonswatch101.com]

 

I know you weren't implying that, and I didn't for a second think that you did. Sometimes taking s a thing to the extreme illustrates the point with a humorous touch.

A corporation benefits from multiple brands so they can sell more product at different price levels. They apply unique branding to differentiate them and ensure the low-price/high-volume sales can occur without damaging the high-price/low-volume sales. Many are defending this high/low co-branding as a great thing... but if selling Omega's at such a low price point and in Swatch stores is such a great thing, why have the 2 separate brands at all? And alternatively, whatever justification there is in having 2 brands, goes against just such a co-branding effort.

Note: a low tier co-branding with a high tier in the same corporation within the same product line is very different from almost all co-labs people are using to defend this effort.

I suspect many business schools and MBA programs will use this particular intra-company high-low Co-Branding experiment in the future as one of their case-studies. Whether it is used as a positive or negative won't be seen for years, and even then may never be conclusive.

 

I wish it was a little more waterproof... I have a FOIS and I have a 2254 as my two main daily wearers but I want to pick one of these up for the weekend and for when I'm running around the house with my 2 year old. I'm not totally afraid of a few bumps and bruises on my daily watches but I also try to avoid some of the more common situations where I might damage it.

 

These are not Omegas...

 

Well, I have a degree in marketing specifically tailored to the automotive industry and have a pretty extensive knowledge of it, being a car guy long before I was a watch guy - that was why your example really hit a nerve

I can tell you that in my regional market, that if you ask a sales person in the VW dealership who the main competitor to a Passat is, he will tell you that is a new, lower-specced Audi or a slightly used one with comparable equipment. You picked the VAG group and their products are - to a fair extent - overlapping in key areas and, more importantly, have quite identical buyer profiles, with the main difference being income. Brand perception between VW and Audi or even VW and Skoda is very close to each other, so while a buyer might aspire to buy the top Audi, he will also be happy with a VW and see that a well-specced Skoda will fulfill his needs as well. In other words the circles are overlapping, but not completely - enough to have some shared brand/group values, but also plenty enough to have outliers that will make one of the brands appeal to some people exclusively amongst them. In your example you mention a base Tiguan and a loaded Macan, but make it the other way around and replace the Tiguan with a Audi Q5 and the image starts flickering.

This couldn't be further away from the relationship between Omega and Swatch. No-one looking at a sub-$500 watch will consider an Omega, no-one in the market for a $7K luxury watch will look at Swatch; someone looking to purchase an Omega might be swayed towards a Longines or a Glashütte however, which is why a collaboration between those tiers of watches would likely end up in cannibalising sales. I tried to outline some of the co-branding mechanics in the other thread which explains why this should work from a marketing viewpoint, so I won't repeat them here. Suffice to say that I do see the idea in this collaboration from a marketing standpoint, but of course only time will tell how it goes

Personally I am not sure if I like the watches or the idea of the marketing the most, but I could easily see myself buying one of them at some point. The colourful ones are fun!

 

Just a quick question - when you say "product line" do you mean that they are both wristwatches?

Because there is zero overlap between the two products, Omega and Swatch. They could just as well have been lingerie and cheese.


Note that I do not endorse lingerie and cheese collaborations.

 

@ConElPueblo thing is the VWs don't bear Porsche/Audi logo on them.

What we have here is a Golf chassis mated to 911 Shaped body. Porsche logo on bonnet. VW logo on rear saying Carrera.

Of course its priced like a Golf and sold at VW dealerships

 

it’s a “collaboration” - its both, so it’s its own thing

Have you heard of hybrid vigor?

 

You basically just described the first 50 years of Porche’s existence

 

Does that matter when they are obviously different? I think that we are doing the watch buying public a disservice by saying that they are somehow not clever enough to see through... see through what exactly? Everything is upfront here; materials, movement, price, big loud colours. I think everyone will know what a Speedmaster MoonSwatch and a Speedmaster Moonwatch is.

After all, at some point in the fifties this was launched:



Complete with bracelet and crown with Rolex logos and a caseback prominently featuring "OYSTER CASE BY ROLEX".

If the addition of a 2mm logo on the dial makes people think this is massively differently marketed, so be it.

 

This is a cute but ultimately distracting framing of the context.

We haven’t seen this happening, as a first principle, because the requisite conditions don’t exit.

Starting from the observation that there are few (any other?) luxury groups that even contain under the same umbrella a low tier yet also conceptually meaningful collaboration brand, the conclusion is far from obvious that other brands haven’t done it because they they thought better of it, but instead simply because it the opportunity doesn’t exist.

If anything, that Omega and Swatch Watch might present a conceptually meaningful high-low collaboration while also being under the same parent umbrella, it might more obviously suggest that this is a planet-aligning (pun intended) and rare win-win for Swatch Group collectively, and other luxury houses would be all over were it even possible for them.

 

Yeah. My understanding for branding is sensitive like that. Just as crucial as my sourcing for original, period correct parts for my vintage pieces. I'll try to spot every details.

The Tudor doesn't say Rolex on the dial. It's on the crown and caseback. Exactly what this collab should have been as I mentioned in my post here:
https://omegaforums.net/threads/swa...rs”-video-hands-on.143818/page-2#post-1959541

I'm not against this collab. I think its genius. Just the dial execution I can't agree with.

 

Haha got me. But, I know, am serious. In 2022 this is like VW selling Golf with 911 lookalike body on top, through VW dealerships. Complete with Porsche and Carrera logos on them. Everyone knows its a Golf and performs like a Golf. But the Porsche/Carrera tribute logos should be on the side. Not the main event.