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Battle of the brands: Glashütte social media analysis
Economy

Battle of the brands: Glashütte social media analysis

Tuesday, 24 April 2018
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William McNish
Strategic Planner at RE-UP

“There is nothing quite as beautiful as the spark in a person's eye when you bring up something they are passionate about.”

Creative flare with an analytic mindset.

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7 min read

Following on from our road trip to Glashütte, Germany, and its bevy of fine watch manufacturers, we’ve taken a look at their Instagram pages to see who’s the social media champion!

Social media is becoming an increasingly important means for fine watch brands to engage with their customers and also try to extend their reach to a new, digitally-born audience. Instagram seems the perfect platform for fine watch brands. According to statista, the largest age demographic on Instagram is 25-34 year-olds with 25.3%. Behind them are 18-24 year-olds with 20.6%. This is the audience that fine watch brands are currently desperate to tap into, to secure the industry’s future. On top of this, according to PEW research, 26% of Instagram users earn more than $75,000 a year. 26% of 800 million users monthly is a lot of potential buyers… Without further ado, here is a detailed analysis of the Instagram pages of Glashütte watch brands.

A. Lange & Söhne

Followers: 177k
Engagement rate: 1.72%

Imagery: A. Lange & Söhne’s Instagram goes through colour series but the images always have a theme of precision, technicality and craftsmanship. The current series features hyper-detailed and hyper-close-up images showing the creation of their timepieces, from videos of the finishing techniques to macro-shots of components, as well as images of the dial inscriptions. Their SIHH Debuts series simply featured front and back views of every timepiece that debuted at this year’s event against a white background. The overarching theme matches the brand’s philosophy of craftsmanship and exclusivity.

Copy: The copy often goes with the series and begins with a number, e.g. (1/3). The text is descriptive, mixing emotive language with technical terms. The watch name is always capitalised as a way of highlighting the most important part of the post. Structure-wise, copy is always split into three parts by dashes: the description of the timepiece shown, the brand-specific hashtags, and the full name of the timepiece.

Glashütte Original

Followers: 73.3k
Engagement rate: 2.36%

Imagery: Images on the page are split into two distinct types: on the wrist and off the wrist. The off-the-wrist content is used to show the details of the timepiece. Wristshots are used to purvey the air of luxury that surrounds their timepieces. Men and women are shown posing in a hat, lighting a candle at a dinner party, even fixing their tuxedo.

Copy: While the structure used to be “statement – explanation”, recently, the dash has been replaced by a colon. Whether this signals a lack of consistency or a shift in copy format, it’s too early to tell, but one thing is for sure: Glashütte Original wants to infuse modern into their texts, using words like “stylish” or “gentlemen” and mentioning red carpets, big Hollywood films and celebrities.

Moritz Grossman

Followers: 1.8k
Engagement rate: 7.75%

Imagery: Moritz Grossman uses their page to publish brand news as well as show off their timepieces. If any of their watches is involved in an event or an auction, they make sure their CEO is photographed with the organisers. They use regrams as a way of interacting with their community and macro-shots to show the finer details of their timepieces. All these images are presented in a somewhat unstructured way.

Copy: The copy for the brand is almost always in the same short form. This can be either one short line of text describing the timepiece or, very often, quotes from artists or authors. For example, an image of their ATUM Skull timepiece is accompanied by David Bailey’s reflection that “The skull is nature’s sculpture”.

Mühle-Glashütte

Followers: 1.2k
Engagement rate: 9.19%

Imagery: Following on from its countdown to SIHH series, the content of which came together to create a hand-drawn timepiece over 16 images, the brand showed snippets of the timepieces scheduled for release at Baselworld this year. Prior to this series, the page was much less structured and featured a variety of images from press shots to regrams, event imagery and shots of the watchmakers themselves, with no real colour scheme. Mostly, the brand seems to feature images it deems ‘nice’ enough for the page.

Copy: Emotive language is used to entice viewers, alongside often philosophical musings aimed at creating an experience, for instance “To experience life in all its diversity, you must find your own way”. Posts are split into different sections, always mentioning the website, the type of post, and the series number. There are hashtags aplenty, ranging from the colours used in the post to luxury, so as to extend reach.

Nomos

Followers: 96.7k
Engagement rate: 2.41%

Imagery: Nomos post a wide range of imagery. They use their branded imagery, which usually includes the timepiece on a white background with a pop of colour, to market their timepieces. They engage with their online community by posting regrams of users wearing their timepieces in a number of different settings, e.g. a cityscape or a mountain view. Lastly, they post videos and images that show the technicality and craftsmanship that goes into making one of their timepieces (as seen above). Overall, the Instagram reflects the brand perfectly: clean lines and minimal aesthetics with splashes of colour, just like the dials of their watches.

Copy: Like the imagery, the copy on Nomos’s page has a playful undertone. By concentrating less on the inner workings of their timepieces and more on the visual aesthetics, they market themselves as more than just fine watch aficionados. They often ask questions to engage the community, and include plenty of hashtags with every post in order to spread its reach.

Tutima

Followers: 3.1k
Engagement rate: 6.49%

Imagery: With only 29 images, the brand has yet to put its mark on its page. That said, the grid so far does feature beautiful imagery of their timepieces together with images of the craftsmanship that goes into the watches, such as the leather straps and the tools involved in their making.

Copy: Tutima is the only brand with only German copy but English hashtags, which reflects the quite small size of the firm and its current social following. Their audience, for now, is predominantly German watch enthusiasts so it makes sense that the copy should be in their native language.

Union Glashütte

Followers: 2.2k
Engagement rate: 6.69%

Imagery: As we’re seeing with most brands, Union Glashütte organise content into series. Their current series documents lectures that the brand will be holding in April. It features videos of past timepieces, historical advertising and imagery of the factories where their watches were once manufactured. The imagery of each series follows a strict colour, themes and even landscapes code.

Copy: Most of Union Glashütte’s content is informative and factual. Emotions are kept to a minimum, used only when discussing the brand’s history and origins. Posts usually have call-to-action asking the reader to check out their website, purchase a watch, etc. The brand occasionally posts long-form content describing a timepiece, going into details about the watch, why it is special, how many pieces were made and its materials.

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