Moto 360 mocks luxury advertising #forourtimes

Many luxury brands – be it in jewellery or fashion & fashion accessories segments follow a template in static advertising – they all have models posing and staring into the camera. What sets apart such campaigns is the styling and execution. The props, celebrity models, quality of photography and even a quirky, memorable element helps in breaking clutter. In audio-visual advertising, luxury brands may not have a template but have a signature style – superb production values, luxe settings, an element of mystique are common. A new campaign for Motorola’s Moto 360 smartwatch lampoons luxury advertising for watches.

The ads have twist, of course. The key features of the watch are introduced in the same ultra-sophisticated tone & manner: ‘craftsmanship, style, Burritos’ – to highlight the alerts function of the watch.

The TV spots too follow this tongue-in-cheek approach:

Agency: Droga 5

The ads are certainly amusing and seek to inflate the ‘pompousness’ of luxury brand advertising. From a strategy point of you, my view is that this is likely to attract those who are already inclined to buy a smart watch or are interested in the category for what it can do from a tech perspective. I say this because, mocking luxury advertising is not going to attract someone who views watches as personal jewellery items and actually buys into the luxury promise. Ask anyone who owns multiple watch brands – there is no rational reason-why for the purchase of your third watch. It is purely emotion driven and a buy-in to the halo of the brand, which is driven by marketing activities like advertising. And a key element of that advertising ‘world’ is the promise of luxury and exclusivity which the Moto 360 ads lampoon.

Apple, on the other hand seems to chalk out a different strategy. Their strategy seems to appeal to the fashion conscious, watch-as-fashion-accessory consumer. The tech aspects of the Apple Watch seem to be an addition layer – not the core of the brand promise. This is not to say that the Moto 360 approach is wrong – it is just different from the path chosen by Apple.