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Comment by asjldkfin | Hacker News Reader

I agree, but to be fair:

1. It has generated significant attention- which has value.

2. Like a BMW 1-series, I imagine the idea is that once people have the "beginner" version, they'll aspire to upgrade to the real thing. It gets people "on the boat".

3. Rolex sells a cheaper version of their flagship watch under the Tudor brand- it's virtually identical and hasn't diluted Rolex's brand value.

4. The funky colors is probably less to do with style and more a guarantee it'll never be confused for the "real" version.

That all said, I would definitely still be salty if I owned a Speedmaster. But I applaud Swatch for making bold and interesting moves- which doesn't exactly happen much in the luxury industry.

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I own a speedmaster, I don’t feel salty at all. I think these look pretty cool

Omega is a subsidiary of the Swatch Group, it's all the same company.

Next you're going to try to tell us that Lamborghinis are made by VW.

This isn't the greatest analogy, post-Murcielago they largely are made by VW/Audi - even the V12.

Salty about what exactly? Put it in words please.

Because it’s a marketing stunt involving an investment I made; an investment I made with the implicit understanding there’ll be some protection for the brand’s dignity.

How would the brand lose "dignity" by doing a coop with their mother brand? Do you perceive the value of a OMEGA watch by the marketing instead of the watch making?

Let's not be naive, if the market gave a shit about substance over marketing, we'd all be wearing Seikos and driving Toyotas.

I still don't understand what you mean with the loss of dignity what is the loss of dignity? Do you mean that the arbitrary value you put on OMEGA watches should not be compromised by offering a cheaper version?

I'm not sure what there is to not understand? But yes, Swatch should not have released a cheaper facsimile if they wanted to maximize Omega's brand value.

That's like saying selling prints of an artwork devalues the original artwork.

Unless you're saying the entire watch collectors market is a scam driven by companies and not collectors.

I don't really understand what you're talking about- but yes, the watch industry- like all luxury industries, is primarily driven by marketing. It's not a scam, it's just the nature of the industry.

Have you ever collected anything?

Do you think Action Comics #1 would drop in value if DC reprinted it? No. It's worth $3 million because the collectors care about the history that represents and the rarity of finding the original. Otherwise it's just ink on shitty paper. Collectors are deciding the value of the original and it can't be manipulated by merely making a new version. Omega would have to start selling the real thing for less money to tank the price. A clone can't do that.

People aren't going to stop buying the original either. Think about knock off designer handbags. It's easy to get a really high quality fake. But no one is buying the fakes if they can have the real thing. A watch collector sure isn't buying the fake since the movement would play a big part in owning that specific model. You want the same model that went to the moon. Not the plastic version.

Even if the supply of the clone is not constrained, I bet some colours are more popular than others, leading to some natural rarity. And in 50 years if they stop making these things and regular people throw them away, that Pluto watch will be worth more than the Mars and a complete collection will be worth even more. All they have done is create another thing for watch enthusiasts to collect.

Let's not get into a long-winded debate about something that's well established, researched and at this point, proven.

There's a reason why Patek doesn't sell a $1000 version of their watch, or why Porsche doesn't make a Corolla competitor.

If you disagree, then you're free to do so. Just understand you're disagreeing with people with a lot more practical experience, knowledge and skin-in-the-game than you.

I don't know about watches, but Porsche does make a Corolla competitor; the VW Golf. I'm sure the analogy isn't perfect, but obviously large manufacturers want to compete across market segments which is why the same company makes Audis and Bugattis as well.

Also, as someone who's not that into watches - the Neptune and Mercury Swatches are gorgeous.

Porsche:VW::Omega:Swatch is a pretty good analogy, actually. In both cases you have a large conglomerate with different brands targeting different price points.

That's the point; VW puts out the "VW Golf", not the "Bugatti Golf", for a reason.

I agree it's not a perfect analogy. That said, I doubt you would sell me an Omega at a discount due to the existence of this new watch.

But they didn't compromise the Porsche brand to do so.

Brand prestige is huge. A much better example here is the Volkswagen Phaeton. A truly stunning product at a great price point - significantly better than the luxury cars it competed with - but it failed because no one wanted to spend their luxury money on a brand associated with affordable normal products.

Phaeton existed in a weird segment, it was like a gimped S-class for the price of an E-class.

It failed because there wasn’t a huge market for gimped S-classes among the E-class buying segment.

The only people interested in Phaetons ended up being corrupt mid-level politicians in eastern Europe, they had full time drivers but didn’t want to be seen in a S-class.

Also keep in mind that for the price of a V8 phaeton you could’ve had such cars as a V6 LS.

Had the phaeton been just a bit nicer, it could very well have survived. But that’s not the car VW built.

> There's a reason why Patek doesn't sell a $1000 version of their watch, or why Porsche doesn't make a Corolla competitor.

The minimum cost for an Omega watch is around $5,000. The Moonswatch that we're talking about here in this discussion is a Swatch. It may additionally have the Omega name on it, but anyone and everyone knows that it is a Swatch, produced to normal Swatch standards, on a Swatch assembly line. It has nothing to do with the line of mechanical Omega watches besides having the name on it.

The existence of an officially licensed Porsche toy car does not degrade the value of a real Porsche. Same for this Swatch.

You are using the same logic that would cause somebody to make statements like "Ads don't work on me because I know they're ads".

Don't treat people like they are rational, because they aren't. If you seriously think the Moonswatch isn't canabalizing Omega's brand cache- just ask yourself: If Casio put out the exact same product with the exact same design, would people be lining up to buy it?

You don't actually need to answer that, because as somebody else pointed out, the Pagani Speedmaster already tried it, and it clearly didn't work.

People aren't buying this because they like the design, they are buying it for the Omega logo.

Try to justify it however you will, but at the end of the day, that $250 watch is an Omega watch in the eyes of those who buy it. It might not be a "real" Omega, but it'll still be an Omega watch. And that's too bad for those with "real" Omegas. Because nobody wants to be lumped in with a bunch of hypebeasts and dead-beats who spend an afternoon lining up for a toy watch.

Are we not?

I have a more expensive watch but my daily d(r)iver is a Seiko SKX009. Indestructible and with a bracelet upgrade it looks great. And here in Asia you see a lot of marketing for Seiko, and tons of shops. And there’s always Grand Seiko if you want to make watch snobs STFU. Or mods if you want to out-nerd the watch nerds.

I don’t own a Toyota yet but I probably will buy one soon!

Investment in what way?

In the way that it's an asset that you derive value from.

And how is the value you derive from it being lessened by the existence of this Moonswatch?

by the simple fact that nobody will think more of Omega with this collaboration, some people will think less of it. Net-of-net, it'll be a decrease in general opinions, which leads to a general decline in market value.

If anything I think this will increase the market value of Omega by bringing in massive interest to the brand.

Anyway, this is a testable hypothesis. All we have to do is wait and see.

Rolex sells a cheaper version of their flagship watch under the Tudor brand

Cheaper in this case means starting at around 3-5k$ not 300$. Also you have to be pretty into watches to know that Tudor is a Rolex brand. It's not really something they advertise.

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