Watch Journalism and the Swatch Group embargo

[ScottMullTx]

Good morning all,

I find it interesting that A Blog To Watch, Hodinkee, Fratello Watches or any other watch website has not called out the Swatch Group for this ridiculous embargo on its 2019 offerings.

Certainly the Swatch Group can do whatever it wants, but do these purported journalists have to play along?

The result, it seems to me, is that these watch sites seem to be reluctant to jeopardize their relationships with the Swatch Group and other manufacturers, effectively becoming mouthpieces instead of independent journalism sites.

So the the question is who do these websites really answer to - the watch manufacturers or their readers?

[77T]

You’re surprised they don’t bite the hand that feeds?

They serve the advertisers paying for clicks

You are the product, Google Ads and others are the paying customer, and the watch makers are the info supplier whose data serves as bait.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[DCheeta]

Even the sites that do have journalistic integrity (e.g. ablogtowatch) will not jeopardize their future access, nor should they. What good are they to us, the reader, if they are no longer a source of information?

[ap1]

Let’s embargo omega

[Michigan_State]

Originally Posted by 77T

You’re surprised they don’t bite the hand that feeds?

This. Wei Koh is probably the only one bold enough to stand up and question the state of the industry. Watching the others dance around the 11.59 is all you needed to see to understand how things are going.

[321Forever]

Embargoes are a natural and appropriate part of journalism. Whether it is political news, entertainment or commerce. Even the mainstream science journals create them.

So this is not exactly a big deal.

J

PS. I can’t wait to see the stuff!

[_speedmaster_]

Originally Posted by jakemeister

Embargoes are a natural and appropriate part of journalism. Whether it is political news, entertainment or commerce. Even the mainstream science journals create them.

So this is not exactly a big deal.

J

PS. I can’t wait to see the stuff!

It is when they already had a retailer embargo months ago. Hold the media at that event. Two embargoes? Two embargoes months apart?

Also, they did a horrendous job communicating if there was a media embargo at all, let alone when it will end.
You have customers patiently waiting for the start of your event, only to have confusion because there was nothing coming out from the media on Tuesday. Nothing on any swatch company social media site saying even something like, "the wait is almost over, stay tuned for Friday when we roll up the curtain". Instead, you have people learning about the embargo on here, questioning what is going on.

[hassantg]

a) I agree the swatch group are big enough to do what they want, I just don't get why they think this is a good idea.

b) about the journalists; I think it's fine that they say nothing about the embargo even though they don't like it. I think the bigger issue is when they actually do talk about the watches they know are not that great and say nothing about it.

[stockae92]

Whats wrong with product release news embargo in the first place?

If your youtube feed was not flooded with Supra review a few days ago after the embargo was lifted, then you must not be a car guy. :)

[maecenas]

With everyone going crazy about this embargo on multiple different forums, the thing I keep thinking is... if we didn't know about it, tomorrow (friday) would come, there'd be tons of new announcements, and everyone would be as happy as ever!

I mean, what are we really mad at? That someone in the world (watch journalists) now know something we don't???

Now, what I *do* care about is when something is actually announced, deposits taken, etc, it's actually delivered in a reasonable time frame (1948 I'm looking at you...)

[mgsooner]

Is there no Swatch Passion Report?

[AK797]

Someone tried to jump the gun with BP I just saw on the other watch forum, it was caught and killed.

[Chester01]

My only issue with the embargo is, they hype it like some kind of big event mark the dates and nothing until the actual event is over.

[_speedmaster_]

Originally Posted by AK797

Someone tried to jump the gun with BP I just saw on the other watch forum, it was caught and killed.

Deployant did, was up for an hour or so. You can see the releases below.

https://www.rolexforums.com/showthre...571271&page=10