Why not both? Making an absurdly expensive gold flavor elevates the whole Watch brand, positions it as a luxury good, and makes it more appealing in China. Win-win.
Positioning Apple as a luxury product isn't what I want or need as con/pro-sumer. I'm not sure where Apple are heading with this. Profit I guess.
The gold version has literally no benefit over the aluminium or steel versions other than being gold. If you discount the value of gold, it's actually worse because it's heavier.
However, there are still people in the world who want to show off their financial status, and have the means to do so by wearing gold watches, jewellery, diamonds, pearls, etc.
It is a fact that many asian cultures embrace these displays of personal wealth. It's common practice in Thailand for people to display their gold items when other relatives/close friends visit their house.
As I said to a friend recently - I fully expect to see a lot more authentic gold apple watches in Thailand than authentic steel or aluminium ones.
What I'm trying to get at is how uncomfortable I am with the way the brand is being positioned. I'll pay top dollar/pound for quality/best-in-class/design products.
I won't pay to be a part of some luxury Apple branding exercise. And that's what this feels like.
I'm arguing this on a branding level. Sure, I can go an buy the $299 whatever-metal version of a Watch, and someone else can go buy the $10,000 version.
That's great. Everyone wins. In my view the brand suffers.
It becomes LESS cool.
The person paying $10,000 isn't paying for a chronological masterpiece ... a technical tour-de-force ... THAT is cool.
The person paying $10,000 is paying for a bejewelled version of what everyone else has. Sorry, boring and tacky and unexciting and has been done to death already by customizers. I don't want to be associated with that.
I thought Apple were "designed by Apple in California". Sounds like it might as well be "designed by Apple in Bangkok".
But it's cool, it's not important, I get that I'm just pissing in the wind really :) But I thought this kind of stuff was important to Apple. Guess it's not.
However, I find it interesting from a business marketing point of view. Apple had their marketing impossibly perfect over the last decade. This feels like a step away from that.
Cheers,
> Positioning Apple as a luxury product isn't what I want or need as con/pro-sumer.
Compare Apple Watch to it's 'competition' - the Moto 360 and the Samsung Galaxy Gear. One type of con/pro-sumer will be happy buying a gizmo and would buy either a Moto 360 or Apple Watch purely on it's utility. But Apple Watch is going to sell to a whole lot more people because it is a fashionable luxury good as well.
Even if no one buys it, Apple Watch Edition helps increase the luxury and fashionability of all the Apple Watch models.
Luxury in my mind is never necessarily the best. I know that. Whereas before I almost might have automatically seen Apple as the best.
So for Apple to want to be seen as Luxury risks bringing baggage to their brand.
But again, who cares. They don't serve me as a single individual. Have a good one, cheers.
No it doesn't. The Apple Watch Edition by appearing on the wrists of celebrities and fashion designers helps makes all smartwatches less geeky and more mainstream but only the Edition is seen as luxurious. The aluminium Sport is now the cheap low class Watch in comparison to the fashionable Edition. Moto 360 (made with metal and leather straps) has no such connotation.
I'm still not convinced Apple had to go this route to appeal to celebrities and chinese, after all they use aluminium iPhones instead of gold Vertu phones. Many celebrities wear plastic Beats headphones and fitbits. I'm confused why Apple wants to turn into a luxury brand (besides the extremely high margins of course).