![]() Later he changed company's name to Swatch Group. He became chairman of the board of directors, and CEO in 1986. Hayek, together with a group of Swiss investors, took over a majority shareholding of Swatch during 1985 in the newly consolidated group under the name Societe Suisse de Microelectronique et d'Horlogerie, or SMH. With an aggressive marketing campaign and relatively low price for a Swiss-made watch, it gained instant popularity in its home market. Sales targets were set to one million timepieces for 1983 and 2.5 million the year after. Initially the price ranged from CHF 39.90 to CHF 49.90 but was standardized to CHF 50.00 in autumn of the same year. The first collection of twelve Swatch models was introduced on 1 March 1983 in Zürich, Switzerland. In 1997, the Swatch group opened about 60 stores worldwide. In 1983, the group hired Jacques Irniger-who formerly served as the marketing executive for Colgate, Nestlé-to launch the swatch. ![]() Swatch was originally intended to re-capture entry level market share lost by Swiss manufacturers of mechanical watches, and the subsequent growth of Japanese companies such as Seiko and Citizen in the 1960s and 1970s, and to re-popularize analog watches at a time when digital watches had achieved wide popularity. Ĭonceived as a standard timekeeper in plastic, Franz Sprecher, a marketing consultant hired by Thomke to give the project an outsider's consideration, sought to create a fashionable line of watches. It will be interesting to see how quickly it fizzles and how quickly Hayek will change his tune.Swatch began development in the early 1980s, under the leadership of the then ETA SA's CEO, Ernst Thomke with a small team of watch engineers led by Elmar Mock and Jacques Müller. Ultimately, whether or not he sells online doesn’t matter because, like all fads, the mania fades. The Moonswatch craze won’t last long, however, so Hayek will milk it for a few more months and you’ll be able to walk into any boutique and pick one up without having to knife fight a guy on the sidewalk. A mixture of hypebeast brand awareness, social media, reseller scalping, and design turned what amounts to a super boring plastic chrono into a winner for the company and by playing hard to get the Swatch Group can get more people into its stores, thereby increasing their return on investment. What happened with the Moonswatch is rare. No one, not even Hayek, could imagine how popular the Moonswatch was going to be especially after the launch of the Sistem51, an automatic Swatch, which, while popular, definitely didn’t get many motors revving. They’re the base of the sales pyramid and they aim to turn passive consumers into true watch lovers – a gateway watch shop, as it were. ![]() Swatch stores have been long a loss leader for the Swatch Group. ![]() After the whole world had to stay at home for two years because of COVID, it was about time to celebrate and to bring the people back on the streets, meet together, and revive the brick-and-mortar stores,” he told Fratello. It’s a carefully produced Swiss Made watch and not a commodity. According to an interview with Fratello, Hayek said that the watches will be sold only at boutiques and not online. If you’ve been waiting to pick up a Moonswatch online then you’ll probably be disappointed to know that Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek is going to spoil your plastic watch dreams.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |