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Comment by gerikson | Hacker News Reader

The Swatch x {Omega,Blancpain} watches are fascinating to me. I wonder how much "brand damage" this inflicts on 2 iconic watch designs. For a long time it seemed like Swatch didn't really advertise their ownership of many premium watch brands. Now it seems to have shifted.

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I own two proper Omegas and all the original Moonswatches. I don't feel it's hurt the Omega brand one bit in my eyes, I love both my Omega and Swatches for what they what are.

I like that Omega are happy to do this, I think it shows they don't take themselves too seriously, compared to say Rolex.

It also maybe helps that every interaction I've had with Omega sales people have been great, and every interaction with a Rolex sales person has been bad to awful.

It’s very hard to do, but it is possible to have a high/low mix for a premium brand. The best example I can think of is Ralph Lauren. You can get their stuff all over the place, often at or under $50, yet it’s still a respectable brand in the couture world.

My favorite watch at the moment is a replica Moonswatch on a decent NATO strap. I am always quite tickled that wearing a copy of a copy that gets any street cred / sense of history. Two degrees of separation, two orders of magnitude less money out of pocket.

My replica Moonswatches cost $25US, looks fairly spiffy, hint at space history, are super lightweight, and keep time. I have a handful of nice watches but I have come to appreciate the combo of comfort / cheap / cheeky.

I also bought a fantasy Moonswatch based on a Japanese render artist's interpretation of Omega's "dark side of the moon" watch. It's a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy! (Moonwatch > dark side > swatch > render > rep.) As a designer of hardware products I think it's a super fun piece of commentary on modern branding and manufacturing.

Kinda too late to think about "brand damage" since their parent company is already named "The Swatch Group", and this was actually already a talking point at the time the parent company was renamed: https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/swatch-name-nick-hayek

Thanks a lot for linking that piece, it's a great read.

That said, I don't believe that the fact that Swatch owned Omega and Blancpain was known outside watch nerd circles until very recently.

Rolex manufactures and sells about a million watches a year. Omega sells about half a millions. I am guessing the strategy is to add a couple of zero to the sales. If you are targeting to sell 50 millions moonswatches, the premium watch sales might not matter much

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