How do you persuade someone to buy a $4,000 Rolex watch, use it for two years, then throw it away and buy another?
You call it an Apple iPhone.
Watch companies describe the unbelievable precision of their products, the engineered glass and the specially machined stainless steel. They create images of a thin, durable, useful, elegant device.
Steve Jobs, chief executive officer of Apple, used this vocabulary to launch the iPhone 4 today. People under the age of 30 no longer wear watches — fashion guides advise baby boomers to look younger by telling time with a phone, not a watch — so this is remarkable marketing judo. When people stop wearing watches, sell them phones styled like watches and charge nearly $4,000 over a two-year period. The anthropologist Genevieve Bell, director of user experience at Intel, says mobile phones have become a form of jewelry. They stay close to the body, like an amulet, and function in social and spiritual ways unrelated to technology.
The iPhone 4 looks like a classic Leica camera, as Jobs pointed out, and also resembles a classic tool watch. The Rolex Submariner created the tool watch category in 1953. The Submariner features brushed stainless steel, a ceramic bezel and a black dial. Sean Connery wore one as James Bond in the 1962 movie “Dr. No.” The iPhone is so pervasive today that Apple doesn’t need to place them in movies or pay celebrities to use them.
In March, the Swiss watch company Ulysse Nardin launched a $50,000 smartphone called the Chairman. Swiss companies do an unfathomably brilliant job of marketing watches. But after comparing the Chairman with the iPhone 4, I believe the Swiss will have their asses handed to them by Californians who stole their best moves. Beyond design elements, 200,000 apps make iPhone the Swiss Army knife of the 21st century.
In December 1969, after Seiko launched the quartz Astron watch, the Swiss watch industry went through gut-wrenching turmoil and then recovered. Forty years later, the question is: How will it respond to mobile phones?
CrunchGear video of an Ulysse Nardin Chairman smartphone.
Above, images of a Rolex Submariner, an Ulysse Nardin Chairman and an Apple iPhone 4.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Brilliant, Bob. You nailed it. Hilarious video too. The smirk on the woman’s face at the initial question (“Why would I ever need this?”) tells the whole story. By the time she snaps into sales mode (“It has Droid 2.0 etc etc.”), her cover is blown.
Excellent post, Bob. I learned a lot about watches.
Richard, thank you. The Rolex British POW story during World War II is an amazing, almost mythic event, as was the Swiss watch industry recovery in the 1970s and 1980s. Chuck Yeager, collaboration with Pan Am on the GMT Master, astronaut space shots — all innovations in technology and marketing.
Gavin, agreed on Ulysse Nardin. Jewelry is the only way to sell $600 worth of technology for $50,000. To launch the iPhone marketing video posted on the Apple website, designer Jony Ive says “This is so much more than just another new product” with a completely straight face.
I think comparing the iPhone to jewelry misses why the iPhone became popular. Companies like Nokia tried to turn phones into jewelry a decade before the iPhone was released; people didn’t particularly care. The iPhone became popular not because it was pretty or elegant, but because it offered a compelling user experience. It was a viral product; people became infected by using a friend’s iPhone, and realizing that they would be able to do things with this phone that they wanted to do, but couldn’t do with their current phone.
The other thing I would point out is that Switzerland is not a relevant force in the phone business, and cell phones are not a relevant part of Switzerland’s economy. So I don’t think Swiss companies will respond to mobile phones per se; cell phones are only a relevant market for certain Swiss component suppliers that sell high-tech components such as miniature gyroscopes. And these companies don’t really care which smartphone sells the most, as long as it’s one containing their components.
Lukas Mathis
Rueras, Switzerland
Lukas,
Thank you for thinking about this, and I enjoy your blog ‘Ignore the Code’ very much. My point is that if people carry a combination pocketwatch/phone/point-and-shoot camera/miniature laptop computer/Internet access portal, the companies making the other devices need to think about how to keep their device relevant. Especially in the face of a company that steals attractive design features from the best of those devices.
At $5,000, TAG Heuer’s latest Meridiist GMT entry in the smartphone space makes the company seem almost as clueless as Ulysse Nardin.
http://meridiist.tagheuer.com/EUR/index_main.php
HTC released photographs of a prototype “HTC 1″ phone, with similarities to watch design.
http://designfabulous.blogspot.com/