There's the story and its quality, but what is perhaps more interesting is its relation to succes. To me, the 'free' watch shows that they are correlated, but not as much as one would think, or even hope. It shows that in some cases, you don't even need the story, you only need the shell of a story. It is the lowest common denominator - it does the absolute rock-bottom, bare-minimum to communicate 'hip watch brand' to the people who see these ads. And in return they get the tiniest of margins, below which it's too much of a hassle to set up and maintain. It's funny to see what kind of Pareto-principle based choices are made to scrape the bottom off the barrel, but it's tangential to why I like the article. That has to do with this: Here's what I find fascinating - this watch is simply the lowest common denominator amongst their audience. Here, that's probably 'people who have ever liked anything related to watches on Instagram and are cheapskates'. Go up a social strata or two and it's a Daniel Wellington. Up a few more and you end up with your Jaquet Droz. All attempt to conjure up a story. But their success is only very loosely related to the veracity of that story. To make money, the story does not have to be good, it just needs to be convincing enough. I would not be surprised if for every person doing their homework and recognizing authenticity, there is another person who does not bother, does not know their shit, or only pays lip service to authenticity. I'm sure the higher the sticker price, the less common this is. But it doesn't go away - it's always in the interest of the seller to tell a better story than the truth. It's called capitalism. At least the 'free watch' guy is being honest about it.
We're talking around the same thing. At the bottom, we have our chinese trunkslammers that are probably pocketing a dollar a watch. If they sell a thousand watches, they made a thousand dollars. If there are three people coordinating everything necessary to sell a thousand watches they're pocketing $300 each. At the next level up we have Daniel Wellington, a "$200m company" that has to pay Kendall Jenner a million dollars to put on a watch. They make a million watches a year and profit about $100 on each one. And then on the top level we have Bernard Arnault, whose wealth has increased by $32b this year. The Movado Group paid $100m for MVMT watches because of course they did. The profit on an MVMT watch is the same as the profit on a Shinola watch is the same as the profit on a Movado is a fraction of the profit on any real contender in the marketplace. And if you want to get into the screaming, rarified profit marketplace you need to be able to perform a decent story. If you just wanna make $100 on a $300 object you need to be able to perform a semi-okay story and if you wanna make $1 on a $2 watch you can work with the barest sketch.To make money, the story does not have to be good, it just needs to be convincing enough. I would not be surprised if for every person doing their homework and recognizing authenticity, there is another person who does not bother, does not know their shit, or only pays lip service to authenticity.
Right, and now anyone can put up a performance and see what kind of scraps get thrown their way. You get the audience you deserve. On the one hand, if anyone with enough stubbornness and a bit of sales can guilloche their way to $20+k watches like your buddy, you shouldn't have much to worry about. On the other hand, with so many rich incumbents, fragmented audiences, and disparate mediums to perform your story, it might be harder to claim your territory than before. I'm inclined to the former instead of the latter, but it must not be an easy thing to gauge.We're talking around the same thing.
Found out today that Parmigiani Fleurier exists because Sandoz wanted it to.