[asjldkfin]

Let's not get into a long-winded debate about something that's well established, researched and at this point, proven.

There's a reason why Patek doesn't sell a $1000 version of their watch, or why Porsche doesn't make a Corolla competitor.

If you disagree, then you're free to do so. Just understand you're disagreeing with people with a lot more practical experience, knowledge and skin-in-the-game than you.

[hotpotamus]

I don't know about watches, but Porsche does make a Corolla competitor; the VW Golf. I'm sure the analogy isn't perfect, but obviously large manufacturers want to compete across market segments which is why the same company makes Audis and Bugattis as well.

Also, as someone who's not that into watches - the Neptune and Mercury Swatches are gorgeous.

[CydeWeys]

Porsche:VW::Omega:Swatch is a pretty good analogy, actually. In both cases you have a large conglomerate with different brands targeting different price points.

[Arainach]

But they didn't compromise the Porsche brand to do so.

Brand prestige is huge. A much better example here is the Volkswagen Phaeton. A truly stunning product at a great price point - significantly better than the luxury cars it competed with - but it failed because no one wanted to spend their luxury money on a brand associated with affordable normal products.

[rosndo]

Phaeton existed in a weird segment, it was like a gimped S-class for the price of an E-class.

It failed because there wasn’t a huge market for gimped S-classes among the E-class buying segment.

The only people interested in Phaetons ended up being corrupt mid-level politicians in eastern Europe, they had full time drivers but didn’t want to be seen in a S-class.

Also keep in mind that for the price of a V8 phaeton you could’ve had such cars as a V6 LS.

Had the phaeton been just a bit nicer, it could very well have survived. But that’s not the car VW built.

[asjldkfin]

That's the point; VW puts out the "VW Golf", not the "Bugatti Golf", for a reason.

[hotpotamus]

I agree it's not a perfect analogy. That said, I doubt you would sell me an Omega at a discount due to the existence of this new watch.

[CydeWeys]

> There's a reason why Patek doesn't sell a $1000 version of their watch, or why Porsche doesn't make a Corolla competitor.

The minimum cost for an Omega watch is around $5,000. The Moonswatch that we're talking about here in this discussion is a Swatch. It may additionally have the Omega name on it, but anyone and everyone knows that it is a Swatch, produced to normal Swatch standards, on a Swatch assembly line. It has nothing to do with the line of mechanical Omega watches besides having the name on it.

The existence of an officially licensed Porsche toy car does not degrade the value of a real Porsche. Same for this Swatch.

[asjldkfin]

You are using the same logic that would cause somebody to make statements like "Ads don't work on me because I know they're ads".

Don't treat people like they are rational, because they aren't. If you seriously think the Moonswatch isn't canabalizing Omega's brand cache- just ask yourself: If Casio put out the exact same product with the exact same design, would people be lining up to buy it?

You don't actually need to answer that, because as somebody else pointed out, the Pagani Speedmaster already tried it, and it clearly didn't work.

People aren't buying this because they like the design, they are buying it for the Omega logo.

Try to justify it however you will, but at the end of the day, that $250 watch is an Omega watch in the eyes of those who buy it. It might not be a "real" Omega, but it'll still be an Omega watch. And that's too bad for those with "real" Omegas. Because nobody wants to be lumped in with a bunch of hypebeasts and dead-beats who spend an afternoon lining up for a toy watch.