A customer can remember the watch in an advertisement and forget the shop that advertised it. For a multi-brand retailer, that leaves an awkward gap between generating interest in a product and becoming the place where someone chooses to buy it.
The Watches of Switzerland Group announced its Brilliantly Given holiday campaign on 2 November. The issuer release describes a campaign across advertising and the Mayors, Betteridge and Watches of Switzerland showroom network, with gifting as its organising idea. Its stated rollout includes outdoor placements in New York City, Miami and Greenwich, as well as print, digital and social activity.
The commercial question for WCRC is what a shared campaign can make memorable about the retailer itself. The release establishes the campaign’s launch and intended presentation. It provides no evidence yet of recall, additional visits or conversion.
Give the retailer a recognisable job
Under the WCRC Powerful Brands methodology, Brand Positioning & Recall asks what a name comes to mean to people. Product, Innovation & Delivery supplies a useful companion question for a retailer: what experience makes that meaning credible?
A retailer’s promise can sit in the help it provides around a selection. A shopper may need to compare sizes, understand the practical differences between two products or choose within a budget. Advice that makes the choice easier can become part of the reason to remember the showroom.
That creates a practical connection between the campaign and its execution in store. If the advertisement invites a considered gift choice, the encounter should make space for that decision. An attractive window display can begin the process, but the useful information and service around it determine what follows.
This is a proposed standard for evaluating the campaign, not an observation from a showroom visit. WCRC has not interviewed shoppers or tested the stores’ advice.
Shared identity should leave room for a useful difference
The campaign brings several retail names together. A common creative idea may make the network more coherent while each showroom still serves customers with particular expectations. Management needs to decide which elements should be consistent and where local or retailer-specific judgement improves the experience.
The same question applies to product brands. Their established identities may attract the customer, but a retailer should be able to explain its own contribution without implying that it created the product’s reputation. Remembering the maker and remembering the adviser are compatible outcomes.
A more informative evaluation would therefore go beyond counting exposure. It could examine whether customers identify the retailer correctly, what they expected from the visit and whether the advice helped them make a choice. Repeat visits would require a longer observation period and careful interpretation of other factors.
None of those measures can be supplied by the announcement itself. The launch is a starting point for asking which association the retailer wants to build. A useful answer would connect the campaign’s gifting idea to something the customer can experience and describe after leaving the showroom.