Success in Luxury Watch Positioning of Breitling Watches
Breitling is a Swiss family business set up in 1884. This company has been providing high-technical watches for professionals in fields where need precise chronographs, especially aviation. Throughout more than 100 years,this company remains its competitive priority in Swiss watch brands. This contributes to its independent development in manufacture, as well as the characters of its instruments, say sturdiness, precision, and distinguished performance. Apart from this, this success of brand in recent rears mainly because properly analysis of marketing mix and appropriate choice of positioning. Concentrating on a delicate and luxury watch business, this company has detected the
…show more content…
The line extensions Breitling has developed adhere to its operation principal, therefore gained the ability to distinguish itself. Among the main competitors, there may be no brands to compete with. Pilots, astronauts are easily informed with this brand and create aspirant or membership groups.
In order to match products more closely to customer needs, products of Breitling are segmented based on usage and character of customers’ occupations. The target market centers on senior ranks or fanciers enthusiastic in precise instruments. Its customers, such as successful astronauts and pilot champions, want to demonstrate accomplishment and rigorous but stylish attitude. They are prepared to pay a premium for the symbols. The targeting is apparently different from main competitive brands working for more general consuming markets as to Hublot, Omega, and Tag Heuer. These competitors are tending to seize their market with aesthetic appreciation, fashion designs, or leisure affections respectively (Hublot, 2013; Omega, 2013; Tag Heuer, 2013). Breitling bears some resemblance with Rolex because they both heritage refined manufacture skills and may share overlapped market in watches for extreme deep-sea divers (‘Superocean’ series and ‘Deepsea Challenge’ in Breitling and Rolex respectively) and world travellers (‘Avenger’ series and ‘Sky-dweller’ in Breitling and Rolex respectively)(Breitling, 2013;
This expansion demonstrates how the luxury industry is now run by massive corporations whose focus is only on growth, visibility, brand awareness, advertising, and most importantly, PROFITS! With growth and expansion, has come a decrease in quality and rarity. The luxury garments produced are mostly not handmade but are even outsourced to large factories in places such as China and Turkey. Also, to meet quarterly turnover projections, “designers churn(ed) out increasingly trendy collections of clothes, handbags, and shoes.” (Thomas, Pg. 246) With hundreds of new stores around the globe the surplus of designer labeled merchandise is immense hence, the proliferation of outlet malls.
In order to get the attention of a potential buyer, a marketer must create an image that will stir curiosity and connect to the viewer’s subconscious mind. First, we see in the background, looking through a window out into the street at night. The middle ground shows a gold Rolex as the center of attention. In the foremost ground the copy reads “Add some elegance to your life.” “ROLEX” and the Rolex’s crown symbol. Most Watch’s advertising sets the time on the Watch to ten minutes after ten. This ad like most watch advertisements used the 10:10 method for the aesthetic reason.
The organizational culture of Bremont, is influenced by the communications. Communications in this case, influence Bremont, through the events that have happened in both of the brothers lives, and a love for aviation to inspire the interest of making luxury wrist watches. The brothers since had a career, in restoring vintage aircraft. They were inspired, by their father’s passion of engineering and watches. These things all tied together, and the fact that the wristwatch was invented for pilots, influence the culture and background for Bremont, making wristwatches, also with airplane parts. What could be taken from this is that, aviation had influence the behavior of this business to start making wristwatches, particularly those watches made with certain airplane parts.
One of the primary change in strategies would require pruning Omega’s product lines to make it more coherent and to eliminate any potential intra-firm competition. Typically, the lower end models need to be pruned so that it could be positioned as a more effective Luxurious Brand to compete directly against other Luxury Brand watches. The prevention of any overlapping with sub-brands will ensure that there is no potential risk to the dilution of brand image as well as reduce the risk of cannibalization of the current product lines. This will also help in uplifting the overall brand image of the Omega brand by withdrawing a number of Omega’s low-priced models thereby boosting the band profitability which will ensure that there is enough opportunity for the improvement on brand margins - a key factor in reducing the price differences with Rolex. Another underlying argument is that this process will enable the exclusivity
The case study Preserve the Luxury or Extend the Brand presents a fictional dilemma, based on a real company, faced by Chateau de Vallois, a prestigious and famous wine-producing estate in the Bordeaux region of France. De Vallois is a family owned and run business; part owners are Gaspard de Sauveterre - a 75-year old majority owner, and equal partial owners: Francois de Sauveterre – Gaspard’s son and the chateau’s CEO , and Claire de Valhubert – Garspard’s granddaughter. De Vallois had fallen into a slow decline under its previous owner, but Gaspard along with Jean-Paul Oudineaux, his estate manager, had restored the chateau and since then de Vallois had been steadily profitable
This paper aims to examine the brand’s major strengths and weaknesses, the current target market and the new markets that Rolex has not yet covered. It will also investigate the state of affairs of the company’s major competitors, together with their marketing and pricing strategies. This report also provides some insight into the company’s operations and strategies that aim to preserve its leadership in the luxury watchmaking
Price is an important factor in Burberry as price affects the value that costumers perceive they get from buying a product (Jobber & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012). Burberry uses competitive pricing similar to its competitors which produces a psychological effect on Burberry customers (Jacobson, n.d). If Burberry for example lowered its price dramatically then customers may believe the quality has decreased and may presume it’s not worthy to be named a luxury brand. However by being expensive it suggest better quality and desire to sustain its customers as well as making there products seem exclusive.
The author who inspired the topic of this thesis is Dana Thomas. As a fashion writer, Dana Thomas, has analyzed the changes in luxury fashion business. Thomas has been writing about fashion for the past twenty-five years in various journals such as Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine, New Yorker, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Financial Times, and more. Dana Thomas’ two books, Deluxe and Gods and Kings, are the inspiration for this thesis. Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Lustre goes into great detail the secrets of the leading luxury industry brands, namely Prada, Gucci and Burberry, to showcase the “New Luxury” of today and how “luxury lost its luster” by featuring the manufacturing and logistical processes. Thomas exposes that many luxury brands use the same Asian factories that mass-market retailers employ, which raises questions concerning quality and craftsmanship for luxury brands.
It is hard to imagine that after the financial crisis swept across Europe, many great transitional enterprises had to face collapse and bankrupt while the luxury goods industry become more prosperous. Recently, the French luxury goods group LVMH announced their recent business condition. The volume of the first week in October had incredibly increased by 12% the previous week. The Hermes Corporation also said that in order to meet the increasing number of market demand, it would open 15 branch stores in the latter half of the year. These aroused some fierce debates, the public held a skeptical opinion towards the questions: How can the luxury companies maintain their positions? Why didn’t they strike down by financial crisis?
3. These fashionable brand watches are known to be tough and this is the third reason why consumers obtain branded watches. It is a considerable aspect to be aware of
In essence, branding is all about differentiation and consistency. It always has been able to effectively establish an emotional relationship with customers. They compete with each other with the quality of watches that they make for example; Rolex provides a variety of choice for their customers and provides their wants and desires. This includes; by making their watches handcrafted, and putting diamonds into their watches to make it more luxurious etc. Another way for them competing is level of service provided. If a customer comes to Rolex they will ensure that they provide insurance and great level of customer service. This will increase repeat-purchase and brand loyalty among their customers. Rolex is considered untouchable in its position as the world’s leading luxury watch brand both in terms of industry prestige and its
as watches with style, class, flair and quality. In these days of mass produced generic watches that tend
What is interesting in this market is that there are no clear leaders. Even though each company’s goal is to make the more profit as possible, we can’t define any leader since they have different strategies and objectives.8 [ (Tower) ] For example, Patek Philippe’s core ideology is to have the most prestigious brand and to make the most expensive watch as possible, and target the most prestigious people which is a really niche market. In comparison, Rolex’s purpose is to be a more accessible luxury brand and make the most sales as possible. It is difficult to compare them in terms of success, Rolex sells more but Patek has a much higher reputation.
The history of Burberry started in 1856 by dress maker Thomas Burberry. His store had developed a reputation for selling a quality range of outerwear By 1870 and the success of Burberry was accelerated with the invention of innovative fabric ‘gabardine’ in 1880
Luxury brands can no longer rely on traditional markets in order to grow. European brands have expanded to Asia and have relayed on their heritage. But the luxury brand should not only rely on its history and age to be sure to succeed. This certainly provides a brand with more stories to tell but it should be clear that this is only one of the resources of a brand. A brand needs to really consider the environment and time they operate in and adapt the brand. This is definitely not easy because if the retell stories about the past they might show more nostalgia than relevance. On the other hand if they try to adapt to trends in the society too much they might lose their authenticity in the long run (page 200-201) The key to success for a brand is demonstrated by this sentence ”It is the brand’s ability to understand and respond to the deeper currents rather than stylistic ploys