Re: Some Wristwatch History

Rivella does not appeal at all to most non-Swiss. There is something disturbing about drinking "milk plasma" or "milk serum" - they should have thought of a better name for the main ingredient - "sweet whey" is closer to being appetizing. Another drink with a similar base is the Japanese "Calpis" . For some reason, it is marketed in the US (not very successfully) under the name "Calpico" - I can't imagine why they didn't want to use the "Calpis" name. ;-) What this points out though is that even in this age of globalization, there are local differences - something that is as familiar to Swiss as Coke is to Americans registers essentially zero on the global recognition scale and even if you could familiarize non-Swiss with this product they probably still would not want it (except the dairy loving Dutch - maybe they could get as far as Denmark with this stuff but not much further).

It is not just marketing that the Japanese lack but skill in cutting edge design and sensitivity to the latest fashion trends - this is really the last frontier that they have not conquered and it is a difficult one because cultural differences make it very hard for Japanese to develop a "finger tip feeling" for what will resonate in the West (and vice versa). The Swiss are way ahead on this front, not just with Swatch but pretty much across the board from the high end to the low - their stuff just plain looks more appealing to Western eyes (at least to my eyes) . As you say, the Swiss could not hope to keep up with the Asians regarding technical developments in the electronics field, but they have found that it is not even necessary to try - the basic 32khz crystal driven quartz movement designs of the '70s are adequate for most consumers and they are more concerned with the external appearance of the watch than what is inside as long as the watch keeps good enough time (and 1/2 sec/day is considered "good enough").

"SWG" <swisswatchguy@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:d5d9f8ce-e462-4593-9b79-b713cfc0ef0c@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Sep 26, 1:02 am, "Alex W." <ing...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Swatch springs to mind. It turned watches form a practical
item into a fashion accessory for the masses. But
admittedly that was marketing rather than technical genius

I was there to witness the first developments under Ernst Thomke's
supervision. The first Swatch prototypes were anti Japanese models:
all black plastic, white dial with either printed Roman figures,
Arabic numerals or Indexes.

The marketing "genius" who made the difference, was Mr. Sprecher, an
independant marketing consultant hired by ET, who conceived the whole
marketing concept of establishing a fashion, a trendy "luxury" brand
at lowest price (then and still CHF 50.--) with contenuously changing
collections (twice yearly). The idea was, not to face Japanese
competition technically as they would be able to react quite quickly
and launche something similar, but again cheaper, but confront them
where they still lack savvy: in marketing.

Before, amongst his many assignments, Sprecher had successfully
launched Rivella, another original Swiss product:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivella



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