There are a lot of challenges these days.

Some come from advances in technology:
https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/08/the-swiss-watch-industry-is-doomed/amp/?client=safari
(a pretty harsh opinion piece)

But more than this, thanks to the recession, our culture (at least in the northeast US) seems to have changed. There is a general distaste for flash and luxury in my generation, even amongst those with means.

http://elitedaily.com/life/culture/millennials-minimalists/1256085/amp/?client=safari

What steps do you feel the industry should take in order to address some of these concerns?

 

Trump just got elected dude. Bust out the pink gold and diamonds /s

 

You have to bring fresh blood to the Watch Gods (so there's someone to sell your killer pieces to down the road).

 

The watches I'm most interested in have already been produced.

That said, I think mechanical watches will be around for a while, though the field does, IMHO, need to be culled a bit. The market will take care of that with time.

 

IMO I think the minimalist lifestyle certain millennials supposedly adhere to is part practical (poor job outlook/inflation) and part trendy. Historically human nature gravitates to the "bigger and better" mentality. This applies to watches too as one can see that current luxury watches are more complicated, larger, contain more precious metals, etc than those of even 10-20 year ago. And generally their prices outpaced the rate of inflation more so than yesteryear. There may be a correction of luxury watch prices occurring soon but as Darlinboy said the market will address this.

 

There is also a movememt towards repairable items, the fourth R.. Reduce, reuse, recycle, Repair. Good luck repairing a quartz watch.

 

@Adamh the tech influence on mechanical watch has been discussed at length in this thread:

https://omegaforums.net/threads/ding-dong-the-apple-watch-witch-is-dead.50372/

Note that Apple Watch sales are now actually down 71.6%, and the TechCrunch article seems to be out of date.

Ref. the millennials...we had the hippies in the late 60s / 70s...and that did not exactly kill off the luxury watch industry. Not a completely fair comparison I know, but still relevant in terms of registering that rejection of material goods/ excessive consumer behaviour by a younger generation is hardly new. Many of the millennials might be rejecting luxury consumption, simply because the current upcoming generation will actually be poorer than their parents for the first time in several decades.

Another observation I would like to add is that many of these internet articles focus on USA consumer behaviour and completely forget about the growth potential of an aspirational upper middle class in emerging markets. Even if mechanical watch sales in the USA were to decline as a percentage of the overall US population, emerging market growth would compensate that decline, certainly in the long run.

So IMO, at least at this stage and for the foreseeable future, all this talk about the doomed luxury watch is industry I still "much ado about nothing".

 

Smart watches do not steal from luxery watches. If anything they will add more buyers.

 

"Another observation I would like to add is that many of these internet articles focus on USA consumer behaviour and completely forget about the growth potential of an aspirational upper middle class in emerging markets"

I honestly wonder about the fate of some of these emerging markets, with the recent rise in nationalism. Another topic altogether, and likely too broad for a thread.

 

Don't!

Many of those emerging markets are multiples of the size of the US.

China used more concrete in the past 10 years than the US did in the past 100 years

 

Just saw this article in The Guardian. It offers no real insight but this comment from someone caught my eye, in response to somebody else saying his Apple watch only needs recharging every 2 weeks (?)..

Like other watches? My 1951 Omega automatic has never needed to be charged.

Seemed relevant

Cheers, Chris

 

Certainly the recent over exaggerated hype of the BRICS has not fully lived up to expectations, but the overall trend will still be of significantly higher growth than the 1st world economies in the next decade.

The only significant threat I can see to emerging market growth is a future disruptive wave of the robots 2.0, which could lead to a critical loss in competitive advantage for lower paid manufacturing, service industry and agricultural jobs. Nevertheless, even taking that risk factor in the account, I still believe that there will be hundreds of potential or nouveau riche millionaires in emerging markets eager to consume an aspirational symbol of success.

 

2012 watches in 3hrs and 10minutes at $6500us = $ 13078000

Using social media and a blogger as the marketing tool.

So that's no advertising costs, no billboards, no magazine advertisements not even a poster in a store. (even more credit is no one had even seen the watch)

They even threw in a master plan of making you pick it up at the closest OB to you geographically by matching where you are due to your IP address.


Don't worry about the future of Omega they are jumping not stepping

 

A

Spot on @STANDY Clearly Raymand has some good ideas in the pipeline.

One area of marketing that I think might be successful is the association of a luxury mechanical watch with "awesome" lifestyle experiences and not necessarily as a strap-on status symbol, i.e. being a valued companion in one of those treasured moments with your loved ones:
wearing an Explorer / Explorer 2 during an African Safari, or as you gaze at the Northern Lights, diving with a SM300MC/Sub in some exotic location, wearing a Reverso at Glyndebourne and enjoying a summer picnic during the Long Interval, wearing a Monza Heuer during a F1 race weekend, visiting Cape Canaveral with a Speedmaster...

 

One reason there is a global sand shortage (at least the kind that can be used for concrete - desert sand is often not able to be used) and why islands in Indonesia are disappearing to sand thieves.

Little off topic but this kind of growth is not sustainable long term...