SDC Weekly 130; MoonSwatch Moat; Carriage
Trump targets European watchmakers in Greenland spat; Integrity in media, parenting lessons from a timegrapher, and more!
🚨 Welcome back to SDC Weekly! In case you missed it, Trump announced new European tariffs in his latest Greenland standoff. He’s essentially escalated his drive to take charge of the Danish territory, and is now targeting Denmark and seven other European countries - the most notable absence on the list is Switzerland!
Given we’ve already covered tariffs in the past, you might be tempted to roll your eyes but bear with me for a second. This time, the impact on the luxury watch industry would still be significant but it would be asymmetrical! Germany is a fairly prestigious watchmaking nation (Lange, Glashütte Original, Nomos, Sinn etc), and they are directly in the crosshairs this time. UK will also suffer, with the likes of Bremont, Christopher Ward (partially Swiss, but UK HQ), Studio Underd0g, and even independents like Roger Smith!
I guess it also depends on how this is enforced; usually tariffs are applied based on “Country of Origin” but if the US applies them based on “Brand Headquarters” (less common but possible in trade wars, and nothing seems impossible with Trump!), French giants like Cartier, Chanel, Hermès and Louis Vuitton could get screwed.
Anyway, today we will investigate the MoonSwatch Moat and ask why, after all these years, no other group has managed to replicate Swatch’s alchemy. Later, we go deep on the concept of “Carriage” - how distribution gatekeepers determine what you buy, and why some are losing the visibility war. Finally, we wrap things up with a lesson on Beat Error and what a timegrapher can teach us about parenting.
Admin note: The Unofficial Editor declined to check this edition and went camping instead. He said the pressure of editing was just too in-tents. Since nobody has combed through this for errors, we’re just winging it… click here to read this post online and ensure you see all corrections made after publishing.
If you’re new to SDC, welcome! If you have time, check out older editions of SDC Weekly here, and longer posts in the archive here.
Estimated reading time: ~20 mins
🌙 MoonSwatch Moat
A couple of years ago Swatch dropped what might be the most audacious product in modern watch history. They took the Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch, which was NASA-certified and Neil-Armstrong-approved, replaced the case with a bioceramic plastic one, coloured them like a packet of Skittles, stuck a quartz movement inside, and sold it for $260+. The industry lost its collective mind, and Swatch Group stakeholders all ran off to the bank.
People queued overnight, fights broke out in some cities, and the secondary market prices hit insane levels for watches that actually cost less than dinner at Nobu. Nick Hayek sold over 2 million of these things by 2023, probably laughing the entire time while smoking cigars during press conferences.
And yet, here we are nearly 4 years later, and despite its success, nobody else has tried to copy the MoonSwatch. It’s curious, don’t you think? Not Richemont with their stable of icons, not LVMH with their marketing juggernaut, and not even the Japanese giants with their volume manufacturing expertise.
Why is that?
The easy answer is that everyone’s scared of diluting their brand equity. The more interesting answer is that the MoonSwatch is a trick that can only be performed once, by one specific magician. Everyone else is missing at least one crucial ingredient.