Christmas is the perfect
occasion to gain leverage on sales and both brands understood that well.
On one hand, there is Ice-watch which is about to
launch their new season special: the Ice-Xmas.
Still around that theme,
Ice-Watch created an app on Facebook. It is a game relative to the Advent
Calendar that started on December 1st and that will end on the 24th.
The Ice-Xmas game offers the opportunity to win a set of 4 watches that
are worth 300€ to 600€!
As for Swatch’s season
special, it is the Red Knit that came in
a limited edition. The watch is already selling at 90€ and comes in a box with an adorable hot water bottle with the patterns
of Christmas.
For which temptation
will you succumb to? In any case, we wish you a merry Christmas!
There is two types of brand ambassadors, the one that the brand employed to promote the brand and the loyal customers that promote the brand just because they love it.
Swatch Brand Ambassadors
Swatch has two kind of ambassadors, the ones related to sports and the other one related to creativity.
For the sports ambassadors, Swatch has 25 successful athletes called the Pro-Team. A watch has been designed for each member of the Pro-Team and they wear it on different events to reach the communities associated with these events. As it is successful athletes, people admire them. They can know which are their favorites Swatch watches on Swatch website. These ambassadors contribute the young, cool and dynamic image of the brand. As only top snowboarders, surfers or FMX riders can be Swatch's ambassadors each year, the brand is never associated with only one member.
For the ambassadors that are not athletes, Swatch choose people with common values like creative diversity with Mika and its watch Kukulakuku or OFF of the artist José Carlos Casado.
The black slice is a reminder, the artist says, to “take time off” – 5
seconds every minute, 5 minutes every hour – to do something completely
different. (Swatch.com)
Swatch has a huge and loyal communities with many brand ambassadors. They can interact with the brand on socila media but also by joining the Swatch Club, the "home of the Swatch fan". Brand Ambassadors can be rewarded for their love with special advantages: special items, events, opportunities to be more involve with the brand, goodies and fun! People feel included, rewarded and can share their enthusiasm. Swatch has been counting on its loyal ambassadors for years, since the brand has thirty years.
Ice Watch
Ice Watch's ambassadors are celebrities like the Black Eyed Peas, Katy Perry... The brand hire famous people to attract its young and trendy customers. Their strategy is pretty usual, celebrities endorse the brand and create brand awarness, brand favourability, and to enable people to imitate their idols.
Ice Watch also have a big community on the social media which can interact with the brand through Facebook. The brand responds to comments and publishes posts regularly. Customers also have blogs and share their experiences and pictures. The brand a strong community and so brand ambassadors which are exited about its watches as it is a famous trend now.
Both brands did collaborations with celebrities (who are
not necessary designers) for marketing purposes. In this article, we will go
back to the most recent collaboration for each of the two brands.
Swatch
x Mika
So
the19th of November was the day we all could have meet Mika! In fact, Mika's
signing session took place in the Swatch store of Paris, at les Champs
Elysées in this particular date.
In case you did not know, what's new for Swatch is the recent collaboration
with the well-known singer Mika. The collection "Mika 4 Swatch" is
composed two designs: one called "kukulakuku" and the other
"kukulakuki". These watches are characterizes by bright
colors, special drawings and come in fancy packages.
In order to better understand the design process that
was followed by the singer, please watch the video that follows:
Florent Manaudou is a professional swimmer andoccasionallythe Olympic champion of the 50-meters
freestyle at the London Olympic games of 2012. Yet, he is most importantly a
brand ambassador for Ice-Watch!
Indeed, "By Manaudou" is a collection made by Ice-Watch in
collaboration with the swimmer.
While this collaboration dates a bit (2012), the advert was launched recently
and you can watch it in the link below.
Swatch
is sponsoring many events about sports, the other events are part of
the Swatch club actions.
Surf
is one of the sports that Swatch is sponsoring, two major events take
place every year: the Swatch Girl Pro France and the Swatch Girl Pro
China.
Last
august was the 4th edition of the SWATCH GIRLS PRO FRANCE hosted in
the coastline of Hossegor-Seignosse. There
is only 6 worldwide events of surf and this 6-stars competition is
one of the two major surf events in France. More than 130 of the
world's top female surfers will compete for 4 days on the French
coast. Swatch is a major sponsor of The SWATCH GIRLS PRO FRANCE and
Pro Junior and the winner of this year is Courtney Conlogue, one of
the Swatch ambassadors.
Three
watches were designed in summer 2013 for the event: the Playero, the
Cuttlefish and the Chlorofish, all water-resistance (20
Bar).The event is one the most attractive and
exiting event for all the surfers' enthusiasts.
The
SWATCH GIRLS PRO CHINA was held for the first time in 2011, in
Hainan in the south of China. The annonce of this event was an
amazing news, surf was not an very popular sport in China and this
location was completely new to the surf competition. As one of the
fundamentals of surf is the quest of new exciting spot, this beach
was a wonderful idea. This year the will run from November 20 – 24,
so we will know in a few days who will be The 2013 ASP Women's World
Longboard Champion!
A
watch has been designed for the event : the Sundowner.
What
are the positive outcome for Swatch ?
Since
its beginning, Swatch wanted to be seen as an innovative and
exciting brand. The three cornerstone of
the brand philosophy are fashion, sports and art. As Arlette-Elsa
Emch explained in an interview, “Our biggest inspiration comes from
the latest fashion trends, contemporary art, as well as lifestyle
sports such as surfing or snowboarding, which are both very close to
fashion and art.”
That
is why sport sponsoring is such an huge part of its marketing
strategy. These events aimed to create positive outcome such as
profit increase or positive advertising effect.
A
profit increase is an important effect of Sport Sponsoring but it is
first of all a form of brand communication. These events bring to
Swatch brand awareness and popularity thanks to all the advertising
in the media and press release. By being associating with different
challenges, Swatch is perceived as an exciting brand. Swatch benefits
also from being associating with the sport, for example, surf is
associated with cool attitude, beach, sun and sea... Swatch go even
further by creating the Swatch Sport Collection. It is helping Swatch
creating its brand image.
The
cognitive and affective response of these sponsorship is also one of
the positive outcomes that the brand is looking for along with a
stronger social identification.
Moreover
the brand gained dynamic and young ambassadors for each sport it
sponsored. These famous athlets who support and represent the brand
are called the Proteam. Each of its ambassadors is presented on
Swatch official website: his life, his specialty, his personnality,
links to his social networks, pictures and videos of the athlete
(some on a Swatch events) and of course his 3 or 4 favourite Swacth
watches. In the surf category, the ambassadors
are Courtney Conlogue, Coco “Cokes” Ho and a French young
surfer Pauline Ado. Her favorites watches are : Wonder drift, Blue
Resolution, Boat Trip and Denim Girl for Courtney, Wonder Tube (her
first personal signature swatch watch), Resolution, In Motorino, Gilt
Ghost and Biko Bloo for Coco and Blue Softness, Lady Green,
Swatch-love Song, Wild Orange, Pink Frame and Acid Drop for Pauline.
In the Surfing longboarding category, the
ambassadors are Darci Liu, Kassia Meador. Hner favorite watches are
Mustardy, Still Alive, White Silk and Full-Blooded Marvellous Yellow
for the Chinese Pro surfer Darci and Biko Green, Mexican Mask
and White Washed Out for Kassia.
Sport
events are now a strategic tools which aim is the commitment and
engagement of its consumers.
What
about the other events ?
The
positive outcomes are the same for the Swatch Free4Style a
FMX, jet-ski and wakeboard competitions, the Swatch Freeride World
Tour, the Red Bull Crashed Ice, the Swatch Skiers Cup or the Swatch
Rocket Air or the North Face Backstyler by Swatch.
Ice
Watch's Events
Ice
Watch is also have events, during which the brand is the center of
it. While Swatch is sponsoring events about sports with big communities and brand ambassadors, Ice Watch's events are more
promotional activities.
For
example the brand held a event for the press in February 2011.
Nothing spectacular was made: a ice box was created to put products
inside, cookies with the images of the Ice Watch watches and there
was the music of the Black Eyes Peace. Guest were given a gift bag
with an Ice Watch watch.
For the
sports side, Ice Watch is still doing a Ice Watch Winter Tour, which
consists of organizing activities in restaurants, bars and night club
in nine ski stations in France. The brand is also the watch brand of
the World Padel Tour of 2013 in Spain.
On
their website we only learn about nine events, basically Ice Watch
events are exposition of their watches like the International
exhibition Moscow Watch Expo they attended in November or Flagship
Opening in Amsterdam. There are also events with no links with their
clients or business like the Airline Retail Conference that they
sponsored or the official partner of Brussels Airlines for a music
event in Belgium or a movie launching party. So Ice Watch is
sponsoring music events, business events, and some sports events, but
their strategy is not very clear, we do not know why it choose this
specific events and what is the added value.
Gemeilia Movie Lauching Party
Ice
watch is participating in some more interesting events like
humanitarian action in China according to the magazine Marie Claire
but surprinzingly there is no record of it on the web.
The outcomes of these events are not really
measurable because there are not numerous, with no link between them
and do not reach the customers.
This is the brand identity prism compare between Icewatch and Swatch. We can easily see that they have many points in common. So that's why they are competitors to each other.
Before being able to develop the points of parity and points of difference of the two brands, we have chosen to make a questionnaire. This questionnaire allows to present, despite a number of less than 100 responses, a trend about the qualities that Swatch Watches and Ice Watch ones figure in the minds of people, so as their popularity. It has be chosen to make it en French because we asked people in a Face-To-Face in the street, but also our friends on Social Networks.
The recall rate of Swatch in the question "What are 5 brands watches" reached 78%" in the survey sample. It was the most cited brand, followed by Casio with 58%. Ice watch's recall call was 29%.
We observed that for people , the 2 biggest qualities of Swatch were the Price and the Quality .For Ice Watch it was the Price and the Design.
Eventually, 80 % of the answerers prefered Swatch rather than Ice Watch.
You can see our questionnaire by clicking > here <
The POP / POD
The Points of Parity and Differences is based on this Questionnaire as well as the other articles on our blog. The project was to give a simple a short-clear mind idea about the links that exist between the two brands and in the same time emphasing their differences.
The Brand Archetypes that have been chosen comes from the course.
It has been chosen to classify Swatch and Ice Swatch as the companies see themselves .
Ice Swatch , despite the low price, stays a graceful watch that represents the order. It inherits the wise side of Swiss watches. So that Swatch can be classify as a "Magician" , the perfect blend between the "Sage" and the "Hero".
Besides, the strategy choosen by Ice Watch is quite different. The brand plays on colorful colors, on its style and don't hide the fact that it is produced on China. This is why its archetype is the "Explorer" even though it can be seen as the "Outlaw" of a market where Swatch has settles its roots since ages. Mohammed B.
