I was walking by the San Francisco Swatch store and dropped in to take a look at the Blancpain collaboration. The Swatch employee said they still only had limited colors of the MoonSwatch available but every color of the Blancpain was in stock. I’m not interested in either but it confirmed my suspicions that the Blancpain isn’t nearly as popular as the MoonSwatch, especially at the higher price point.
$400 is really high for a Swatch.
Growing up, their watches were $40-$50. And they were popular. You wore them for a year or two, and when they were too beat up, you bought another one. Anyone could buy them.
Today, they’re $80-$110.
So they drop the Moonswatch. $250 is high, but the economy was better, the watch was a novelty, many people know the Speedmaster was the first watch on the Moon. Omega has marketed the Speedy for 50+ years. Billions of billboards, bus shelters, and magazine ads. Also, the moonswatch had cool models related to our solar system. People could identify with those models.
Sold like wild fire.
$400 for a plastic Blancpain?
Who, outside of serious watch collectors, knows anything about a 50 Fathoms or any Blancpain watches? If you surveyed 50 people on the street about 50 Fathoms, 50 of them would give you a blank look.
Even the average Swatch customer, when entering the store, will google Blancpain 50 Fathoms to see what the original watch looked like and then figure out the association. And it’s still $400.
Exactly. The Moonswatch didn’t just have the timing and the novelty factor going for it—both of which were huge—but also the fact that pretty much everyone who has even a passing familiarity with watches knows what a Speedmaster is. Probably second only to various Rolex models on the “oh yeah, I’ve heard of that before” familiarity scale. You have to be relatively deep into watches already to know or care what the Fifty Fathoms is — and most of those people probably aren’t the types who will buy a $400 plastic Swatch.
Right, and those who were interested in Fifty Fathoms and a fun take… probably had WAY more fun with the Fifty Phantoms
$50 when Swatch launched is $155 dollars today. It’s called inflation.
I swear I remember being able to buy a pretty decent swatch for like $25 in the 00s which is barely $50 in today’s money.
I’m surprised they are still in business tbh. $110 is a loy for their cheap, plastic watches, specially compared to what you can get from other brands, like Casio, at that price point.
I was going to buy one in Switzerland as a chrap souvenir of my trip, thinking they’d be like 50 bucks, I was shocked when I saw the prices.
You’re aware they own, direct quote from wiki here, “Blancpain, Breguet, Certina, ETA, Glashütte Original, Hamilton, Harry Winston, Longines, Mido, Omega, Rado, and Tissot.”
lol yeah pretty much only watch nerds realize what a massive JUGGERNAUT the SWATCH group is. SWATCH made some great acquisitions in the 80s/90s/00s when a lot of watchmakers were struggling to stay afloat.
Kinda comparable to how billionaires love recessions because they can scoop up a ton of assets for pennies in the dollar while most people are just trying to survive.
Volkswagen Group is also a good example of a conglomerate wherein most people don’t realize they own brands like Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, and Ducati motorcycles.
I mean Swatch as a watch brand, I’m well aware that they own many other brands.