I was walking by the San Francisco Swatch store and dropped in to take a look at the Blancpain collaboration. The Swatch employee said they still only had limited colors of the MoonSwatch available but every color of the Blancpain was in stock. I’m not interested in either but it confirmed my suspicions that the Blancpain isn’t nearly as popular as the MoonSwatch, especially at the higher price point.
Casuals don’t know Blancpain, they don’t care if the watch is automatic.
The moonswatch was so popular because a majority of people know Omega,being the first of the limited releases also built up hype, and people actually got to feel and see that the quality is the same as a swatch (which personally I’m not sure why people expected anything else from a $260 dollar watch)
Apart from that the colors are garish.
To be expected. Blancpain has never been a “cool” brand. The Fifty Fathoms is ugly and dated. Sparse to a fault, like those Unimatic watches. Just my opinion, to each their own. It’s also $400 plastic watch that can’t be serviced. The ETA quartz movement in the Moonswatch runs on batteries and objectively has a longer theoretical service life vs a sistem51 movement.
The color selection is hideous. There’s no “Mission to the Moon” option available. Imagine a black on black bezel option with the iconic yellow/red no rads indicator…but of course people would never bother buying the real thing if that were the case. The Fifty Fathoms doesn’t have the same mythological pull that the Moonwatch has.
As others have stated they are overhyped “watches” that can’t even be serviced. People paying hundreds for a disposable watch.
I was there on Friday and they did not have a full stock of blancpain. So they must have got a delivery recently.
Omega has more brand goodwill than blanc
Good. The entire idea cheapens the brand names involved.
Yes it does. They ruined Blancpain in my book. I had two BPs and sold them both when they did that. I’ll never buy another.
When I visited the Vegas Swatch store they were sold out, but had half the Moonswatch solar system. I may have picked one up if they had any 🤷🏼♂️
I was in Berlin a month ago, people was still lining up outside the SWATCH store. No idea if it was for the Blancpain or MoonSwatch.
I could buy any colour the MoonSwatch in Bangkok 8 months ago.
The fifty fathoms is sold only at KaDeWe, so that was a Moonswatch line you were looking at
A quartz chrono makes so much more sense for a disposable plastic watch than a $400 automatic.
Not that many people know about the Blancpain as brand. More people probably know what a speedmaster at a glance than know what a Blancpain is. On top of all of that, the MoonSwatch/Speedmaster looks better.
The MoonSwatch was cool cause the colors made sense and actually looked good. None of the Blancpain colors look good.
I just looked them up for the first time and they look like plastic children’s toys that you’d get at Walmart.
Imo the color choices also make a difference. The moonswatch color choices are fun, all look amazing, and some of them tap into unique heritage like the hands on the mission to Mars. The blancpain colors on the other hand are pretty much all ugly but 2. I saw a few comments talking about how bad they looked on the leak and new right away this was a dud from the get go. Not much the price is absurd. That’s actual good watch money. You could buy a quartz prx for around that, a bunch of seikos. Just a bad pricepoint for novelty. I also think the automatic movement moves it into more watch enthusiast space, where as the moonswatch had more mainstream appeal. And watch enthusiast are going to more critical of a trash automatic then a quartz watch imo
Even on this sub there are far fewer people posting their Swatch x Blancpain.
I think it’s a combination of things: the higher price-point, Blancpain being less popular than Omega, and the watch craze is starting to die down a bit. People had lots of free time and extra cash during the pandemic years - that’s been changing this past year or so.I think you’re right on all points. I’m surprised they didn’t just do a Seamaster instead. I assume they’re waiting for the next Bond film and we’ll see a Swatch X Omega Seamaster X Bond watch.
Seamaster would get great but Swatch Group is desperate to make Blancpain relevant. So far, no good.
They could have tried a lot of other things first.
They should start by shrinking the FF 3 millimeters
Yeah they completely missed the memo that people don’t want big watches anymore.
BondSwatch
It’s all of this, plus the fact that the Blancpain Swatch has a non-serviceable movement so when it dies, it dies for good. At least with the MoonSwatch if it dies you can easily have the battery replaced.
You can just swap the whole movement out.
That’s not true, those cases are sealed shut from the factory, you literally have to destroy the case to even get to the movement.
The case back on the FF Swatch is glued, not integral to the case, so you shouldn’t need to destroy anything to remove it.
Is swatch manufacturing the Blancpain differently than they do most of their other watches with the Sistem51 movement? I have owned a couple and the cases are sealed shut, not able to be opened without damaging or breaking it.
In my opinion if it’s glued shut that means it’s non serviceable, they do not intend for you to open the watch which again supports my first point that once it dies it dies for good.
Some metal case Sistem51 models since 2016 have had removable casebacks, so serviceable models have been around for a while. The older plastic models were not serviceable.
This site claims that Swatch told them the FF case back was removable.
Supposedly the FF is glued to be able to get to the “50 fathoms” depth rating, probably it’s less a less expensive/complicated option compared to a screw-down back (the indentations on the case back look decorative, I don’t think they’re deep enough to survive being gripped by a tool). FWIW, Fratello’s blog post quotes Omega’s VP of Product as saying the case back can’t be removed, but I’m not sure how reliable the source is given the supposed statement from Swatch that it can be removed. To reconcile these two statements, I’d speculate that the Omega VP is erroneously applying the MoonSwatch’s reality to the FF, but who knows…
I think also a lot of people got burnt out on the whole cheap expensive brand watch thing with the Moonswatch getting so much coverage.
But besides that, brand is the biggest thing. Most non-watch people know Omega as a brand. Blancpain has very little if any recognition outside of our circle, hell, even many people who are into watches don’t know about Blancpain.
And even with people who know about Blancpain… is it exactly cool to have a swatch with a Blancpain logo on it? Kinda defeats the purpose… if someone offered me a plastic lange/Patek for 1k, I’d say no thank you.
Exactly, it’s dumb.
The designs being ugly is also a big factor.
It’s all of this, plus the fact that the Blancpain Swatch has a non-serviceable movement so when it dies, it dies for good. At least with the MoonSwatch if it dies you can easily have the battery replaced.
Dont forget… the moonwatch looks kind of cool… this one is uggly as hell… there is just no way looking at it and admiring the looks…
Kind of weird that the colors the picked for each ocean are based on sea slugs. I get the idea, but still… slugs.
I haven’t seen one in person, but I actually like it on the photos. I would even buy one if it was cheaper.
The Speedy is a fine watch, and Moonswatch did a good job capturing the look of the real think in a plastic package. It’s an attractive watch even if it’s clearly a toy version of it.
The true Fifty Fathoms is a very distinguished watch, but the Swatch FF looks like the worst kind of plastic McDonald’s toy imaginable, while also charging you even more money.
The Moonswatch is a meme but it is an attractive meme. The FF is a hideous meme.
I’ve been casually into watches for a while and I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I only heard about Blancpain this year (I’m 34 years old). I knew the Omega name before I was even a teenager. I bet if you ask 100 random people on the street 99 of them will have heard of Omega