How marketing watches has changed over the years

Over the years, the approach to marketing in general has stayed the same. Some industries are the exception.

The first advertisements from major watch companies were printed ads in catalogs, and some times flyers hung up in easy to spot locations. These printed ads focused mainly on the functionality of the watch, like how water resistant it is or how accurate it keeps time.

The next big thing in watch advertising was when rolex began to shift its focus from what the watch could do, to who wore these watches. They made people want to be a person who owned a Rolex. More and more influential politicians began wearing a Rolex watch, and they knew how to take advantage of that, as seen in this ad.

After a while, they also told the stories of adventurous people like sailors who sailed across great distances, and people who climbed the highest mountains while wearing their watches. This combined the previous ads that showed their durability, and made people want to be associated with them.

Then came the gamechanger for marketing for Rolex

James Bond, 007, the men wants to be him and the ladies want him. Or so they said.

Rolex kept on with their marketing strategy of showing off their watches and making people want to associate with them. Although it is somewhat debated whether James Cameron, the director of the early Bond movies had an agreement with Rolex or not, it made history in the watch community as one of the first watches to have been placed in a movie.

Fast forward a couple of decades

Patek Philippe, one of the big boys in the industry, one part of the watchmaking worlds “holy trinity” launches a different kind of advertisement. The year is 1996, and the “Generations” campaign is launched.
Patek Philippe pairs sentimental pictures of families with the text

“you never actually own a Patek Philippe, you merely look after it for the next generation”

This marks a new “era” for the watch advertisements, as they go from the classical practicality and “you want to be this guy” to play on emotions. They also include womens watches in the advertisments, which was (and still is, to some degree) sort of rare.

Generally speaking, the marketing campaigns in the watch industry in general has not changed that much and dont differ alot compared to marketing in general, regardless of industry.
Until around 2006. The Swiss watchmakers, IWC launches an ad on shuttlebuses to airports to promote their new pilot watches. Here they made it possible for everyone to “try on” their new watch, and gained much respect for a clever but cheap and effective advertisement.

Then again, nothing big happened up until about 2017.
Jaeger-LeCoultre(JLC), another swiss watchmaker makes it possible for potential buyers to try on their watches, without actually trying them on. They launch an app, where the user can select what watch to wear through augumented reality. It seems the watch industry is finally embracing the new digital world. While this article may not reflect in very good, remember that the major watch brands changed virtually nothing in their advertisement from around 1970 up until 2006. So this was certainly a big thing when launched.
This was a huge deal for JLC, because now their potential customers could try their watches on anywhere. The reason this is imporant is, there are not a lot of JLC watch dealers around, all things considered.

A new player enters the game

H. Moser & Cie(HMC), the big bad bully of the industry.
An old company with a new profile, mocks the other watchmakers. If i were to compare HMC to Patek Philippe, i might say that while Patek Philippe is a conservative gentleman, while HMC is a loud and rude milennial who thinks everything is a joke, in a good way. They have, in a timeframe of a few years completely disrupted the way you can market a watch.

Their first heavy hitting, viral campaign was targeted at the apple watch.

Later, they took a stab at the watch industry marking their watches as “Swiss made” while not being 100% made in Switzerland. Doing so was a disgrace to them, and so, they took another hit at the industry by making a 100% swiss watch made of cheese, amongst other things. And yes, you read that right, it said cheese.
It also featured a band made from a swiss cow, and the dial is meant to look like the swiss flag.

The last ad from HMC i want to share with you is this.

You might think “what in gods name is this”, and rightfully so.
This last ad is a combination of the so called “timeless designs” in the watch industry. While it is clear that HMC is a creative powerhouse, that is not the case for most of the other watchmakers.
By making this watch, they bashed Rolex, Audemars Piguet, Panerai, Breguet and Girard Perregaux for their lack of creativity by combining the most recognisable features from the different brands most iconic watch models into one ugly lump of a watch. By running these campaigns, and many more, they have gone from being virtually unknown to becoming viral hits almost over night. Their marketing is a much needed breeze of fresh air in the watch industry.

You cant really talk about marketing without mentioning instagram, right?

So lets talk about it. Instagram, one of the “new” places to market your brand.
If you have the impression that the watch industry is not a very forward facing industry, and relies greatly on ancient marketing methods like old fashioned ad campaigns and fairs that are greatly outdated (more on that later) you are absolutely right.
Lets take the more recognised names in the watch industry like Rolex, Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet and find out if they are doing what they should on Instagram.

Rolex on instagram

All in all, rolex have improved greatly since they first started using Instagram 5 years ago. They used to post their catalog photos of their watches and post them straight to instagram. Now they have included their followers in a more interesting way, showing how the watches are made, and telling stories.

Audemars Piguet

Audemars Piguet seems to have been extremely forward thinking and catching on to trends like storytelling and including the followers in the process of making watches in a way that is visually pleasing to watch from the get go. This was honestly not what i expected from them to be quite honest. It might not be too surprising considering the fact that they have a relatively young CEO, which might be part of the reason for their success on instagram. The thing that surprised me the most was that they “only” have 306k followers, compared to the 9.5 million of Rolex.

Patek Philippe (that old guy i was talking about earlier)

What is going on here, honestly. It seems like they have deleted their old photos and started a new strategy. Their feed is clean, no clutter. This is very impressive to say the least, their feed looks like the feed of a vegan smoothie shop in SoHo, and that is a great compliment. I definately have to reconsider continuing calling them an old fashioned conservative gentleman from now on.

So we talked about their ad campaigns, and their instagrams. But why do i think they are so old fashioned?

The reason i say they are old fashioned are mainly due to a couple of things.
Firstly they still use fairs in Switzerland to show off their new watches, the two fairs are called Baselworld and SIHH. This means their dealers have to fly from all over the world to get a glimpse of the newly released watches. This method was outdated 20 years ago, and still is.

Secondly, while they certainly have stepped up their instagram game, they still dont fully take advantage of it. They never run paid ads and they rarely interact with their followers. This is key to drive up the engagement on their posts and would definately contribute to more sales.

And the last, most crucial flaw of their marketing strategy is that there is basically no marketing strategy (take this with a pinch of salt). For the most part, they seem to completely ignore what advancements the rest of the world does when it comes to marketing, and if anything that will be their downfall. Im interested in how it will be in 20-30 years when their target group is the millenials and gen-x, and how they will convince a millenial to buy a Patek Philippe for 200.000 USD instead of a Daniel Wellington or any other low cost brand. They certainly have a challenging time ahead.

Disclaimer
All photos of vintage and new ads are used with no intent to violate the copyright of the owner. Some ads are press releases from the companies themselves and is subject to fair use. No profits are made from this website.

If you are the owner of any photos used and would like to see them removed, feel free to contact me.