Thoughts on manufacturer collaborations with the likes of Hodinkee...
Regarding yesterday's Blancpain release of a presumably true no-date caliber movement of the Milspec fifty fathoms produced with the Hodinkee brand: On yesterday's thread by joenghenry, I posed questions as to why manufacturers do these things to the chag...
One Hundred Percent....
... Agree with you. It is lame to release the watch we all want, a 50 fathoms with no date, and allow a bunch of hodinkee guys to buy thrm up and charge 3 times the original price. Shite
very true
Unfortunately it's a common trend of short-sightedness by the brands/manufacturers. I believe that the powers at be making the decisions have been sleeping at the wheels for a while now. I still find it intriguing when they release the same watch model w/...
Hodinkee has a huge and loyal following.
There is no other online market place where you can dump 200 10K + watches and sell them within minutes. So it is clearly very tempting for the brands. To make it work you need to make those releases special, at least to the Hodinkee crowd. The recipe is ...
Good analysis...
...but H has become more and more of a sales portal than a go-to place for honest reviews. They have too much invested in selling the products to do a totally unbiased review. I have told them this in the comments many times, even thought those types of c...
It is a new marketing ploy like any other sales technique b4 it. It does get a brand lot of recognition pairing with these influencers...
...and their base. These promoters imo provide a huge boost to the manufactures brand value by reaching out to exponentially greater audience. In the end it is upto the consumer to wisen up and decide whats collectible/appealing to them and how much to pa...
Let's have some empathy for the Blancpain executive whose bonus pay is determined on watch sales...
Imagine this, you're a Blancpain executive. Your pay is entirely based on your performance in selling watches. Of course you're going to exploit every profitable avenue you can, damn the collectors, and damn the ethics. You want your bonus this year! And ...
Good Point But...
... Why not release this watch to the entire market? Blancpain's "Exec" would have a difficult time keeping up with demand, which means BIGGER BONUS. 200 watches? Pfffft.
It's part of the contract with Hodinkee...
Hodinkee is in the business of offering good press, thus Hodinkee needs a guaranteed sell out; thus quantities are always very limited in the contract. And the brand wants the same, as they've learned that hype sells more watches than selling watches.
To me Hodinkee is just another retailer.
It's been going on before Hodinkee with the likes of Bucherer, Sincere, and Watches of Switzerland to name a few. I treat it just the same as when a watch company changes 1or 2 thing from LE to LE. In Blancpains case it most likely helps them with more br...
I see it this way too. The hodinkee hype might leave an extra bad after taste but this isn't a new thing.
For example, I quite like some of the ALS Wempe editions. I like this one BP too but unlike Wempe, I don't want "Hodinkee" on my watch - It's like the horological version of getting a Supreme at this point. Hopefully BP is using this as a good test for de...
Couldn't disagree more
SUPREME is about name recognition and the branding, it's overt and in your face. Look at anything by SUPREME and tell me if you can't find the Box Logo emblazoned on it somewhere highly visible to every onlooker. The Hodinkee name exists solely on the bla...
The implementation is certainly different but I would say the strategies have some similarities
Unlike a Wempe, supreme and Hodinkee are brands first, brands that thrive on hype and then use that hype and following to make money on collaborations. It may not be as brash as a red tramp stamp supreme sticker but Hodinkee does make sure to get their na...
To be very frank, not only am I uninterested in these co-branded LEs, but for me the overall appeal of a brand *decreases* once they openly engage in these financial operations with little to no horological/historical significance.
It's true, like other friends already mentioned, that for as long as brands are certain to find a few hundred people who pay up, these countless "limited" editions are unlikely to stop. And as Patrick put it, all of this is good for executive bonuses, esp...
Well said but no one cares about image anymore
Because now we have people buying just about anything (cars, watches, etc.) regardless of brand image or whatever. What was a watch collector before is now a watch buyer and the manufacturers know this.
the..."long run".
I don't think anyone, organization, corporation, business, or even government (PROC excepted maybe) thinks about "the long run" anymore. Maximize profits/advantage now and the future (including people} be damned.
Case And...
... Point. All gone and now you can only find one for 3X's original price. Shite. ...
Yep, precisely my point, at least as far as many brands are concerned, especially the non-independents. I'm definitely not concerned about brands that are willingly making certain decisions for mere financial gain.
And unfortunately, whoever is temporarily in charge of certain businesses is unlikely to worry about the long run...given that their own success on the job often depends upon maximizing profits and satisfying current market demands ;-) My concern however ...
I agree with your point
To me, it is just a Marketing Dept trend... They said during their bullshit brainstorming that they have to be present on the social media where things happen. They think about where to go, what to do...??? If they provide a watch to Kim Kardashian with h...
Customer input? one person here, one person there, Hodinkee is one Colossus of a customer.
A quick story, I've had an obscure Longines watch listed on chrono24 for something like 2 years, no interest. All of sudden I get 3 sales offers. At the time, I hadn't been on the Hodinkee site for a number of weeks but when I did, scanning through the ba...
No worries...we still have the following editions to come, everyone will get a chance at one eventually:
Milspec date in titanium LE Milspec no-date in titanium LE Milspec date blue dial LE Milspec no-date blue dial LE Milspec date in titanium blue dial LE Milspec no-date in titanium blue dial LE Milspec date grey dial LE Milspec no-date grey dial LE Milspec...
250 x 14400 usd
I got a question. Do you think all these LE are specifically designed by hodink staff, or they simply ask how to make it to the houses?
Hodinkee team (Ben) provides input regarding changes to existing models.
Remember they are not creating new models, simply tweaking existing ones. And yes, they are absolutely providing input.
Don't be upset, these editions are not for experienced and sophisticated watch lovers like you....
Actually brands in general don't like us very much because we expect and demand something special because we know better. Let the noobs and rubes learn the hard way S
We are talking about for profit companies with annual revenue and sales targets and parent cos and shareholders to answer to.
The job is to sell enough watches today and in doing so don’t do anything silly enough to damage the brand and future sales. If one can sell through 200+ watches in 15 minutes then that’s a nice little bump to any weekly/monthly sales target. And while th...
Well said. My thoughts exactly. I admire Hdk for the company that they are and not necessarily the journalistic outpost that they arguably aren’t..
Having said that, a relatively educated mind can sift through seemingly paid verbiage and still enjoy their content. But it’s all good. I just feel sorry for these brands that sell portions of their design that one might consider as something that they sh...
As usual, I think you made some reasonable points, so I'm (generally) in agreement with you :-) Some brands -- even though, fortunately, there are counterexamples! -- will probably jump at this "opportunity" to "bump up sales."
However, I can't agree we are necessarily on the "edge on the Internet" here (after factoring in that collecting high-end watches is already a *very* niche activity, of course). This is arguably the main forum for watch enthusiasts on the entire web, with...
It’s not that we or any other forum are insignificant it’s more that collectors / enthusiasts as a whole don’t account for a significant portion of sales for many brands.
Especially when we are talking about the likes of Blancpain, or IWC or Zenith. For as long as I’ve been following forums, be they general or brand specific, my feeling is that we have always overestimated the weight that our voice carries in discussion wi...
I don‘t see much of a problem in such a collaboration in general. For me it‘s more of a question what they do in the collaboration and how many there are (collaborations not pieces)
A slightly altered version of a general release / watch from the current collection would be ok. A completely new design would be ok. Even a simultaneuos release of a slightly altered LE with the brands own LE would be ok. A slightly altered version of a ...
I may be the odd man out but Hondinkee is a retailer and its nothing new for
brands to create special limited editions for their retailers
Final thoughts and thanks to all for the well-considered responses...
I would conclude by saying that it is obvious that Hodinkee has become a force with which to be reckoned in the watch world, for now. I would love to have a Hodinkee representative, say, Mr Jack Forster, who in the past has participated in this watch foru...