Blancpain Milspec Fifty Fathoms: The Impact of Manufacturer-Hodinkee Collaborations

remarque · 2020-12-16T08:53:26Z

Explore the strategic reasons behind luxury watch brands like Blancpain collaborating with Hodinkee, analyzing manufacturer benefits, collector sentiment, and market impact.

remarque

WPS member · Horological Meandering forum

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Remarque's original post delves into the strategic rationale behind luxury watch manufacturers collaborating with platforms like Hodinkee, particularly in the context of a Blancpain Milspec Fifty Fathoms release. He questions the perceived benefits for manufacturers and the apparent disregard for direct customer feedback. This discussion remains highly relevant as such collaborations continue to shape the luxury watch market and collector sentiment.

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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 chagrin of us, the customer base, and at less profit to the mother company to boot.

My deductions:

1) Hodinkee provides some huge unknown benefit to the mother company manufacturer, be it financial explicit or implicit, and makes unknown promises as part of said benefits. (Purchasing all produced watches a priori including those earmarked for the boutiques, thus excluding risk to the manufacturer?) (Promising nebulous future increased gain based on past performance?) (If so, the manufacturers know nothing from what one learns about buying stocks!) (Promising increased name cachet, etc etc?)

2) On their own end, the manufacturers completely disregard client (end customer) input (while valuing other perceived brands' voices such as Hodinkee) and have no interest in producing certain items regardless of known interest. Why perform market research only to ignore it? Those in positions to "green light" projects do so only when they perceive it will benefit themselves personally in their climbing the company chain, rather than make decisions that will benefit the company with less personal gain credit... Why would an executive tell the President "Sir, I have a great idea: let's make a no-date fifty fathoms milspec!" The boss would say "We've known that for years... why I am paying you to tell me what I already know and have consciously ignored, you ignoramus!!"

I have had these feelings with many manufacturers, and this is not intended to single out Blancpain...

Key Points from the Discussion

Hodinkee functions as a brand first, leveraging hype and a dedicated following to monetize collaborations, often ensuring their branding is subtly integrated into the watches, such as on the rotor, while influencing design choices like removing dates or polishing.
Manufacturers engage in these collaborations to quickly sell through limited editions, often hundreds of watches in minutes, providing a significant boost to sales targets with minimal risk, despite potential negative reactions from a niche subset of collectors.
Collaborations with platforms like Hodinkee are often a marketing department trend, seen as a safe way to engage with social media and reach a younger audience without potentially harming the brand image, unlike more controversial celebrity endorsements.
Hodinkee's unique selling proposition is its ability to move 200+ watches priced over $10,000 within minutes by adhering to a specific recipe: no-date, stainless steel, under 40mm, and a non-production piece, which can be very tempting for brands.
While Hodinkee collaborations can bring significant brand awareness, as evidenced by an obscure watch model gaining sudden interest after being featured, the pricing of these collaborations can be a point of contention.
The danger of these collaborations lies in diluting the brand's production portfolio and potentially devaluing existing limited editions, as seen when a platinum Vacheron Constantin Cornes de Vache owner sold their watch after a stainless steel Hodinkee collaboration was released.

The Discussion

elliot55

Dec 16, 2020

... 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

aston.db4

Dec 16, 2020

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/o a date, call it a LE model and charge double. Wouldn't it make more logical sense for something like this to be a normal production model?

als1678

Dec 16, 2020

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 : no date, stainless steel, no more than 40mm. As long as you can satisfy those 3 and the piece is not a production one you've got a winner. The danger ? - diluting the production portfolio. But as brands have gotten away with unlimited number o

mdg

Dec 16, 2020

...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 comments rarely get published. But what do I know? Only 40 years experience in graphic design, retail packaging, and branding : )

redcorals

Dec 16, 2020

...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 pay for them.

patrick_y

Dec 16, 2020

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 this isn't an exclusive to Blancpain executive phenomenon, it's every brand executive... Now, combined with the fact that this COVID 2020 is going to be very unstable in watch sales, you probably cooked up this Hodinkee edition with Hodinkee sev

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Blancpain Milspec Fifty Fathoms: The Impact of Manufacturer-Hodinkee Collaborations

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