When does a microbrand become a macrobrand?!
I have had this question for a while now and figured I could share it on here!
Reflecting on the march tournament, we all know that some microbrands offer a great value for money proposition in todays watch market, where big brands cannot always afford to offer. There are some great up and coming or established microbrands doing great things in the past couple years, sometimes even more innovative than the “real” brands.
There is the factor of in house movement that some of the longer running brands can advertise, but some brands cant. The same can be said about micros.
This being said, when does a micro become a macro?
When I first got into the collecting hobby, Bell & Ross was one of the brands I found really interesting. When I heard someone refer to it as a microbrand, I was surprised, as I thought they were pretty established and a “macrobrand”
Christopher Ward comes to my mind as one that should be graduating into macrobrand territory. They make some killer pieces and are only growing. If I had to decide, I would consider them on the cusp or just passed into macroland. 😂
So fellow crunchers, what do you think? When does a micro become a macro?
college student with a college student’s budget. Avid Casio DBC-611 wearer.
It has to be a combination of different factors as with anything, yet personally I believe that when a brand releases their own manufacture movement they go a step up to the next league, cheers !
There are Microbrands with their own Movements ... E.g. Habring2
Also, i never heard anyone actually use the term macro brand.
I think this is highly subjective. Like a discussion of metal genres. Is this death metal inspired black metal or Blackend death metal? And then the band themselves say it's supreme death metal. 🤣
For me a Microbrand is a brand that is not known by alot of people and you cannot purchase their watches everywhere.
There is no official definition.
The number of production is to be seen in relation to their vallue.
Some are producing few hundreds a year but each 50K or 100K and are there since decades or even more.
So the points are:
•Are they established on the market with their products and their brand (a website is not enough)
•Are they offer their products as a constabtly serial production
•Accsess and availability
•Demand
•The ratio of vallue and quantity
But Bell & Ross I wouldn't consider as a micro in any means.
I think we should also not compare to huge industrial mass producers as like Seiko or Citizen.
My own debatable opinion is that a microbrand become a brand when:
They control or own their chain of supply, manufacturing and distribution
Their turnover exceed a few millions of US$/year.
It's a very hard thing to judge as most microbrands keep their business to themselves (which is their right), so in most cases we really don't know if a brand has sold 10 of a particular model in the past month or 100... or 1000... or more! Sometimes the only way we even get close to having reliable data is when a limited edition sells out and we can definitely say, "Well, we know they've sold 500 of those..."
Ultimately, the 'smoke and mirrors' and marketing hype that most microbrands go in for obfuscates any data that would help us go close to knowing where they're really at. For just one example of how microbrands love to over hype themselves, has anyone ever read Deep Blue's mission statement? "Deep Blue Watches has quickly become the industry leader when it comes to Professional grade Dive Watches." The industry leader in professional dive watches? LOL, I think a number of brands might contest that.
My humble opinion? Once it has either produced a sizable range of watches which are readily available without crowdfunding assistance (e.g. CW) or has a national/international network of ADs.
Bell&Ross might be offer niche products, but they are by no means a microbrand. Neither are Ball, Bremont, etc.
Established Microbrand examples would be Baltic, Lorier, and Zelos…brands that produce watches in small batches that might sell out and not be available again for a while, if ever.
When they replace the 'I' with an 'A', I guess? Whomp whomp whomp...
In all seriousness though, When they produce more than 10,000 units a year, have production runs that are not limited, I guess.
When they replace the 'I' with an 'A', I guess? Whomp whomp whomp...
In all seriousness though, When they produce more than 10,000 units a year, have production runs that are not limited, I guess.
When the brand founder is no longer the public-facing Director or CEO. Usually happens because the business is large enough where they need to hire someone to run the brand.
Production numbers have nothing to do with it, as many brands deemed as “micros” already produce more units than many mainstream brands - sometimes significantly more.
I still see CW as a microbrand. They are not an independent and as a result of their sale model being still peer to peer direct, not an established brand. They are a bigger company then most micro, hence why you see terms like legacy microbrand.