Marketing on microbrands

Every “micro” brand I own (have owned) was (at least partly) thanks to YouTube.

I personally know that Direnzo relies heavily on specific YouTubers (for better or for worse).

I'll go with their advertising

Yeah boy, marketing is def expensive. Im in the car biz and we send out pre-production units to PR roundup and youtubers we build a fleet of them. U will likely need a good number of production unit watches to push out to get reviewed. That costs. Doesnt guarantee the channel/talent will have time or take the unit for the review. Better have an in, too.

I own probably 10 to 15 microbrands that I’ve provided in the past couple years and I don’t follow a single YouTuber. I do keep up with several blogs and notice what other people are wearing on sites such as this one.

Yes YouTube help see the watch on wrist because those microbrand don’t have store so I use that to see how it fit. But I follow my taste and I buy watches with bad review because it was my taste

I found out about the microbrands I purchased watches from via YouTube. I realized some were awesome, but others were not so much. Nowadays I keep a skeptical eye out for the same watch being reviewed by different channels at about the same time. Falling for hype, intentional or not, can get expensive.

The microbrands that I kept were: Lorier (Neptune and Falcon), Traska (Venturer GMT), Brew (Metric), Maen (Manhattan) and Erebus (Original). The latter I bought because I like JOMW Jody. Unsure if I will keep it or not. I also bought and kept from a kickstarter brand, Adley, because the watch is based on a bicycle chain ring and I am an avid cyclist.

Microbrands that I bought and sold were: Islander (Hawkeye flieger and TGV Rangemaster mechanical, never felt a connection with either watch), Vaer (I bought a Hamilton Khaki and a second field watch didn't make sense), BOLDR (I bought the Venture Singularity but it never clicked), Martenero (bought the Ascent Reserve but definitely did not like it). I returned a CIGA Design Series C skeletonized for a refund (the first watch was DOA, the replacement was also DOA, and the customer service sucks. Never again).

Of course, I did sell watches from large brands such as Seiko and G-Shock. I also sold the MoonSwatch Jupiter (talk about falling for the hype).

YouTubers, who don't have to pay for the watches, trying to convince other people that it's worth their while are somewhat responsible. But I find a lot of microbrands like to sprinkle - what I call - 'a little fairydust' on their releases, appealing to a sense of nostalgia, or FOMO, or something else that really tries to set their watches up as something incredible, when many are just cobbled together from Chinese parts pins, have generic movements, etc, and aren't half the watch they're marketed as. There are exceptions, as someone will no doubt reply. Sure, there are exceptions to everything in life. But most microbrands I can see straight through at 50 paces. They're not worth anyone's time, let alone their coin.

I have learned a lot about microbrands by watching "watch YouTubers," but I still haven't bought a watch influenced by them. Usually, I like different models than the ones advertised by them (yes, most of them get their watches from the microbrands, even though their reviews are independent). At the beginning, many of them were honest in their reviews. These days, everybody is a watch expert, which is great because more people are learning and appreciating this hobby, but it's also bad because there is also a lot of misinformation.

In short, there are many people who buy the watches because of the fear of missing out (FOMO) and to be part of the hype. Therefore, the YouTube strategy may be working for them.