WatchPro – August 2019

The reason for this is because it is

generally a hit and miss approach.

For every one influencer that delivers

outstanding results, many others will

fail to make any impact at all. And

unfortunately, there is no easy way to

predict which way things will go. It is

a modern day version of the old joke

that everybody knows half of their

advertising spend is wasted, they just

do not know which half.

On the face of things, wanting to

scale the strategy seems reasonable.

Yet, when you consider how labour

intensive the identification, vetting

sale until months later. Or possibly

never at all. But perhaps they in turn

will recommend the product to a

friend who will become a buyer. That

is, after all, the nature of word-of-

mouth marketing.

SCALING:

At relatively low volumes, i.e. working

with a handful of influencers, it

is possible to just about manage

the above three issues. However,

many believe that achieving scale

is necessary to fully optimise an

influencer marketing strategy.

and direct sales when it comes to

measuring success. Influencers,

conversely, argue that the value they

deliver is more intrinsically tied to the

quality of the content they produce

and the level of awareness they

generate amongst the brand’s target

audience. Tracking the real impact of

the latter on actual sales is extremely

difficult, however.

It’s entirely feasible that a post on

Instagram by a popular influencer

may change or shape a consumer’s

perception of a particular brand, but

this may not translate into an actual

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO WATCHANISH

Anish Bhatt, the man who created the

Watchanish social media sensation, is an

unassuming British watch collector who

turned his passion for horology into a career

that charges brands tens of thousands

of dollars for an influencer campaign.

WatchPro’s Rob Corder caught up with him

at a Roger Dubuis Lamborghini track day to

get his views on how influencers fit into the

wider marketing mix in the watch industry.

WatchPro: It has been a dramatic time in

marketing with so many big brands pulling

out of the major trade shows and searching

around for a different way to talk to customers,

the press and retail partners. Do you think this

is part of a much broader transformation of

the marketing landscape with a dramatic rise

in digital advertising and particularly social

media spending?

Anish Bhatt: What social media has done

is create a huge global platform where

everybody can see new watches the moment

they are released. Before people would have

to wait maybe a month to read what was being

launched at Baselworld in a magazine. Today,

at 1am on the first day you can see pretty much

everything.

You do not need to throw money at

marketing watches to people outside the halls

of Baselworld because social media does that

for them. But for me Baselworld is more than

just a tradeshow. It is a place where you go

to interact with other people in the industry:

retailers, brands, collectors, press, enthusiasts.

There are people that I meet only once a

year at either Baselworld of SIHH. It is like a

pilgrimage and it would be a shame if we lose

that.

WatchPro: If you were advising a brand

pulling out of Baselworld and presumably

saving millions of dollars that could be spent

on other marketing activity, what would you

suggest they do? Spend more in local markets?

Spend more on social media?

Anish Bhatt: I think they have to. From

where I stand the investment needs to go into

analysing and evaluating social media success

and making sure that the marketing teams

really understand it. For a long time people

in those departments have been trained on

print, but the world has changed. Print is still

important, I still believe in it. We have even

launched out own magazine but people need

to be educated and up-to-date with measuring

the success of social media campaigns, not

to be flummoxed by fake numbers. They

should not rely on agencies for this type of

information, they should learn themselves

how to do it.

Things have improved, but there is a real

lack of confidence in digital communication

because people did not know how to measure

campaigns, impressions, engagement or what

these things mean. All they tried to do was

apply what they knew from print which was

cost per thousand readers for an advert.

Some industries are further ahead and the

watch world needs to catch up with the likes

of fashion and art, which are 5-7 years ahead in

terms of their marketing.

WatchPro: If you were a retailer with one

or two shops today, is there a way of taking

advantage of social media so that it becomes a

friend rather than a threat?

Anish Bhatt: Smaller companies do not have

such a complex hierarchy for decision-making.

They can take risks and be daring. They can

do things that bigger brands and retailers

cannot. They can definitely make an impactful

campaign and it does not necessarily need to

cost a huge amount of money, but it will take

time, energy and research to get it right.

They should look outside their own markets

to see what other brands and retailers have

done and what has been successful. They

cannot have tunnel vision on watches and

what other people in this industry are doing.

Independents can make big strides against the

bigger guys because the big players are slow

to get going.

We saw this in the watch industry when

smaller brands like MB&F got onto social

media way before Patek Philippe or Swatch

Group brands. By the time the big players got

started, the smaller ones had already built

up a large and loyal following. And they had

commercialised in an authentic way before

the big boys started.

WatchPro: Is there a way to break in today

when the social media platforms have been

around for a long time and the major brands

WATCHPRO WORKSHOP / INFLUENCER MARKETING

38 WATCHPRO / AUGUST 2019^ /^ watchpro.com