The criticism was predictable. A revered luxury watchmaker partners with Swatch, introduces a colorful US $400 pocket watch, and collectors immediately worry about dilution. But the Audemars Piguet x Swatch Royal Pop Collection is not simply a less expensive expression of Royal Oak codes. It is a brand architecture move.
More specifically, it is co-branding: a brand with a brand, designed to create access without collapsing the distance that makes luxury desirable. The collaboration combines Audemars Piguet’s heritage of authenticity, design authority, scarcity, and horological prestige with Swatch’s colorful, playful, innovative, modern unorthodoxy.
Those who see only multicolored plastic may be missing the strategy. Audemars Piguet understands scarcity, provenance, and luxury authority. Swatch understands accessibility, cultural participation, irreverence, and mass fascination. Together, they are not making luxury common. They are making desire more visible.
In 2022, Swatch Group, the watch group that owns Swatch and other brands, including Blancpain, Breguet, Certina, ETA, Glashütte Original, Hamilton, Harry Winston, Longines, Rado, Omega, and Tissot, envisioned the evolving nature of luxury.
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To generate renewed interest in the affordable Swatch brand, Swatch partnered with its sibling brand, Omega, to create the MoonSwatch. According to observers, the MoonSwatch created an offering called Budget Luxury. The customer buys heritage, status, authenticity, and exclusivity, as well as savvy, one-of-a-kind, in-the-know fun at an affordable price.
The March 2022 Swatch launch of the Omega x Swatch Speedmaster, known as the MoonSwatch, at US $260 was a massive hit. The Omega x Swatch MoonSwatch design resembled the iconic Omega Speedmaster, known as the Moonwatch, since it was worn by US astronauts. At its release, the MoonSwatch generated such enthusiasm that crowds surrounded Swatch stores around the world. Bloomberg BusinessWeek reported that in Geneva, hundreds of buyers “snaked around the block,” and there was a police presence to ensure safety.
The response to MoonSwatch was so extraordinary that Swatch Group released a limited edition of the “most desired” MoonSwatch, the Mission to Neptune. Mission to Neptune became a collector’s item after its original release.
Following the success of MoonSwatch, Swatch Group introduced the five-watch Blancpain x Swatch Scuba Fifty Fathoms Collection. Each Blancpain x Swatch Scuba Fifty Fathoms watch reflected the ethos of one of the world’s five oceans. Prices started at US $400. The average price of a Blancpain was US $12,000. The original Blancpain Fifty Fathoms, a 70-year-old watch designed for divers, was featured on the wrists of oceanographer Jacques Cousteau’s team for the filming of the Oscar-winning documentary The Silent World. Its list price was US $14,000, but it can sell for as much as US $21,000.
On September 7, 2023, there was a Blancpain x Swatch Scuba Fifty Fathoms five-page advertisement in The New York Times featuring each of the five styles, designs, and colors: Arctic Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and Antarctic Ocean.
A Different Kind Of Swatch Collaboration
The Audemars Piguet x Swatch Royal Pop Collection is another collaboration between an exclusive luxury heritage watchmaker and Swatch. But this collaboration is strategically different. Omega and Blancpain are Swatch Group brands. Audemars Piguet is not. That makes the Audemars Piguet x Swatch Royal Pop Collection an even more explicit act of co-branding, not merely a portfolio move within one corporate owner.
The co-branding brand architecture that Audemars Piguet and Swatch are employing is basically an architecture of “a brand with a brand.” The Audemars Piguet x Swatch Royal Pop Collection combines Audemars Piguet’s heritage of authenticity, luxury, design authority, and exclusivity with the colorful, playful, innovative, modern unorthodoxy of Swatch.
Co-Branding Is Brand With Brand
With co-branding, both brands share the identification as the source of the promise. Co-branding differs from component branding, where one brand is the host brand, and the other brand is a component within the host brand. Component branding is a brand within a brand, while co-branding is a brand with a brand.
An example of component branding is a Dell computer with Intel inside or Timberland boots with Gore-Tex outside. An example of co-branding is the MGM Collection with Marriott Bonvoy.
With component branding, the brand promise is the host brand promise. The component adds a benefit. With co-branding, the source of the overall promise comes from both brands.
Why Brand Architecture Matters
Brand architecture is essential for brands. Brand architecture is the particular brand identity approach used to define the relationship of one brand to another in the portfolio. When brand architecture is properly managed, the customer knows what each brand contributes, what each brand stands for, and why the combination makes sense.
Audemars Piguet has an eye to the future. Every brand needs new customers while maintaining bonds with existing customers. Younger customers who desire but cannot yet afford an Audemars Piguet watch can gain entry into the franchise with an offering that is within reach. They are not buying a Royal Oak. They are buying an accessible expression of the codes, culture, and desirability around Audemars Piguet, filtered through the Swatch spirit.
This is important. Luxury dilution does not come from access alone. Luxury dilution comes from unmanaged access. A co-branding approach allows an offering that is both exclusive and accessible. It creates a controlled point of entry without collapsing the distance that makes luxury desirable.
For Swatch, the Audemars Piguet collaboration reinforces Swatch’s “with-it” image. Swatch reinforces its image of irreverence, innovativeness, and cleverness. The collaboration shows that Swatch continues to care about accessibility and affordability. Swatch continues to behave like Swatch: colorful, democratic, unexpected, and culturally alert.
The Luxury Paradox
The Audemars Piguet x Swatch Royal Pop Collection has reignited the ongoing debate about the democratization of luxury.
Many in the luxury business continue to debate the tension between product access and exclusivity. Many question a luxury brand’s ability to remain exclusive while being more widely visible. Can abundant rarity really work?
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There are those who do not believe that luxury can be both restricted and available. These experts believe that excessive exposure saps the luxury from a product or service. Is it possible to be a luxury brand and be available to everyone? A co-branding approach can help solve this tension because the accessible product is not the core luxury product. It is a separate, jointly authored expression of the brand idea.
Also consider the driving paradox defined by the optimization of both timelessness and timeliness. We want the authenticity, heritage, customs, and legacies of products and services steeped in tradition, while also seeking innovation, novelty, and uniqueness. We desire the latest and the legacy, the old and the new. Audemars Piguet x Swatch Royal Pop Collection maximizes this paradox: the timelessness of Audemars Piguet with the timeliness of Swatch.
Audemars Piguet x Swatch Royal Pop Collection is a savvy brand-building move. For those who were vocal about the diminishment of their Audemars Piguet investment, one word: relax. Strategically, the move to collaborate with Swatch may strengthen Audemars Piguet’s cultural relevance without undermining the scarcity of its core luxury offering.
Please do not sign onto the short-term view of Wall Street that wants payout now. Brands build value over time, but only if properly managed. Please give credit to Audemars Piguet and to Swatch for identifying a strategy that continues to build both brands.
Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by Joan Kiddon, Partner, The Blake Project, Author of The Paradox Planet: Creating Brand Experiences For The Age Of I
At The Blake Project, we help leaders turn brand into a disciplined driver of financial performance — strengthening pricing power, competitive position, and enterprise value. Email us to start a conversation about enduring profitable growth. For The EBITDA.
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