~ Legendary Swatch ~
Here is a bit of history about the first brand.
Designed in the 80s
by Nicolas Hayek, these
Swiss watches were first marketed in the year of 1983. Swatch actually escaped
the crisis and was able to revive the horologist industry. In the year of 1979,
the competition was rude due to the Japanese yet Swatch dealt with it by
launching the now mythical “Delirium”. However, the event that truly overcame
the crisis was the creation of SMH (Société de Microélectronique et d’Horlogerie
SA) making it possible to produce watches that are both of higher quality
and more affordable. It is also worth to mention that it is part of the Swatch Group, the
leader in the horologist market.
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Swatch Timeline - click
on the picture to enlarge it!
Swatch Group's portfolio is structured as
follows:
Prestige and luxury range: Breguet, Harry Winston, Blancpain, Glashutte Original, Jaquet Droz, Léon Hatot, and Omega;
High range:
Longines, Rado, Union Glashutte;
Middle range:
Tissot, Balmain, Certina, Mido, Hamilton, Calvin Klein;
Basic range:
Swatch, Flik Flak.
The roles of the brands in Swatch Group’s portfolio are such that
Swatch represents both the low-entry and the flagship brand. The cash cow is
symbolized by the brand Tissot. As for the premium brands, they refer to all
the ones that figure in the high range and luxury range stated above.
Back to Swatch, its mission is "to offer low cost, high quality, and accurate watchs with synthetic material" (Swatch's annual report). They position themselves as trendy, innovative or sporty depending on the collection.
Swatch is very present in the Web 2.0.: Facebook (3 million likes),
Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest, Tumblr and g+. They also have several apps:
Swatch & AR't Swatch for Android and Swatch Faces in the Apple store.
Let's (s)watch the teaser of the latter:
Sources:
~ The Ice-watch phenomenon ~
Now that you became a bit more expert in
Swatch history, let's talk about Ice-watch, its competitor brand.
Ice-Watch is a relatively new company that was
created in 2006 by Jean-Pierre Lutgen in Belgium. The
company's motto is "Change. You can".
They position their watches as basic range
(made of plastic) ones usually characterized by a color and which come in
what they call a cube box. The company proclaims its brand
as “the cross-point between social value and identity”
(Press Release).
Image source: here
Following
their slogan, Ice-Watch promotes change for the following reasons:
“1.Affordable
price: Ice-watch is the answer to all impulsive purchases,
2.
Colors adaptable to your life and your mood,
3.
Adaptable to your activities: work, sports, holidays, parties.” (Press
Release)
Ice-Watch was created on purpose to steal
market share from Swatch.
There are 7 collections
proposed by the brand:
The brand has over 300 designs in the aforementioned collections. The company is also quite present in the Web 2.0. yet to a lesser extent than Swatch. Ice-Watch is on Facebook (4,8 million likes), Twitter, and Instagram. They also have three apps: Ice-Watch, Ice-Phone and Ice-Game. Today, if Ice-watch has become a successful and well-established brand, it is thanks to the marketing strategies adopted by the company. In fact, advertising in magazines and product placement in clip videos (David Guetta & The Black Eyed Peas) were the two main ways of promoting the brand.
Sources:
By Mouna S.
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