What does branding mean to you?

If a watch is this cheap, you should ask yourself, how is this possible. Either they are lying about movement and steel, or they are treating their workers like slaves and fuck up the environment. I think, they are doing both.

I have the same approach as you. I consider a watch to be the sum of its parts and the name on the dial is secondary. The quality of a watch should speak for itself and not rely on its branding to try and justify its price, otherwise it's certainly not fair-priced.

Although in the case of that Addiesdive specifically, the logo detracts from the overall aesthetic of the dial so I wouldn't buy the watch. No matter how good of a value purchase it is, if I don't like the looks I won't buy it.

Cheap watches are becoming better and it's a great thing for modest enthusiasts. 👏

Many times we tend to forget that the costs of design and testing and market research are baked in the cost of a watch. Homage brands simply don’t have these costs and these “savings” are passed on to the buyer, together with savings with different manufacturing standards, looser tolerances, coarser finishing, etc. Market research simply means looking at what’s talked about on the internet in this case.

When buying a watch from a big name manufacturer, you can argue that “you’re paying for the brand”, but if you think about it, Seiko, Citizen, Casio, etc. are homaged as well and they’re nowhere near “luxury” brands worth paying a premium just for the logo. But you’re sure as well paying for the iterations and dummies and mock-ups and the committees and the market research involved into designing that watch which are accounted for in the price. This translates into buying an “original” design (while brands mostly pull things from their back catalog and update them) versus an homage.

If you prefer keeping change in your pocket and going for the homage because the homage wrecks the “original” on a spec-by-spec basis, that’s entirely your preference.

EDIT: I really like that Addiesdive, but the hideous logo on a gorgeous dial just kills the deal. They should have thought twice about it.

Branding has to resonate with me aesthetically AND what the brand stands for/practices in how they produce the watches, the stories and purpose they want to tell, etc.

Branding is pretty critical for me. I bought a premium named brand because of what the brand represents,& the name on the dial gives certain assurances of quality, accuracy, reliability, durability, with history and status being secondary .

So yes, branding is very important, aesthetics aside.

In reality branding is a very powerful sales driver, and it often is extremely manipulative as many mistake it as an undisputed quality assurance indicator.

Branding is basically reputation mixed with illusion/imagination. It's half history and truth and half delusional bunk. People tend to like the latter stuff more.

Anyway, I'm mainly here to deride "specifications" for things that are not commodity goods. As one auto writer quipped about varying engines of similar peak power output, it's like saying that painting is the same dimensions as the Mona Lisa. There's more to it than measurements.

Homage offerings give some insight into actual production costs. While there is no doubt design costs associated with the original, this homage is from 1970, and its design costs were amortized many decades ago among many product lines. Companies don’t charge based on what it costs, but based on what they can get, and if they can’t make a profit the stop producing. The original is 20x the price, produced by a company that has clearly more optimized manufacturing resources and likely can produce them more efficiently than any micro brand . Don’t forget seiko takes a profit at the original end and homage end since the movements are all mass produced by Seiko. It would be interesting if Steeldive and Addiedive were actively encouraged/funded by seiko to sell more NH35, NH34, NH36. 😂

Getting back to OP…. I’m all for name, logo, trademark protection. However if consumers only buy by name, for assurance of quality, or prestige, then that business rule kicks in “you charge what you can get, not what it costs”. The market ends up with ETA 7750 watches that sell from $600 up to $15k depending on the name on the watch, despite that the movement costs $300. I love AliX homage watches since they baseline production costs, and are perfect for people who are looking to separate luxury name brand prestige cost versus the actual item.

I have to disagree. I think if a well spec-ed watch can be this cheap, the question should be, "How is it possible that its big brand equivalent is so expensive?"

Put the onus on the large corporations who are likely gouging you, not the fly-by-night pirates.

It's China, so manpower is cheap, and materials are cheap. Does that bother me, of course it doesn't!

I agree with all of that. From watching other reviews, the watch is very good, but the name and logo is awful. You would think they would get in a European consultant o come up with a better name

A good litmus test I have found for this is to consider a microbrand like Lorier or Brew:

These companies fall somewhere in the middle, price-wise, between AliExpress Homage and The Big Companies. They don't have the prestige or history of Hamilton or Seiko, and they aren't "stealing" designs like San Martin or Pagani. So if the "pirating" aspect of Ali Express is removed, but the Heritage/Branding aspect still isn't present, where do you land? That should answer your question.

I get all those points, but don't really agree. Let's not forget that Seiko (fr example) homage luxury brands as much as any Chinese brand. Secondly, the finishing, tolerances, and QC for many Chinese brands is actually very good, and arguably better than Seiko. Finally, it may be a little cheaper homaging an existing design, but not by much. they do it because they know the watch is likely to sell in greater quantity. All I want is a nice looking well made watch that looks nice, anything else is immaterial

I respect that totally, although that isn't philosophy in the slightest

I learned through experience. I worked for a major retailer that sold outdoor clothing. We would take a garment to a factory and ask them to replicate it in looks and quality. We could sell an item every bit as good as the big names for half the price, yet people kept buying the big brands.

Of course they did, those brands worked hard to establish their reputation....I'm sure most folks would be prepared to pay a bit more for an established company's (& their longevity) product than that of an unknown name even if equal or even superior in quality.

Plus I'm as shallow as a watermark 😂

No that´s not the question. For 50 bucks you can´t pay a loan that is not close to slavery not even in China.

There is a giant gap between cheap manpower and workers that are treated like slaves. For 50 bucks you can be sure how they are doing it at this company...

Firstly I should point out Aliexpress is just a selling format, like Amazon or eBay. Aliexpress sell many originally designed watches, and Amazon sell a lot of homages. On that subject, don't forget that Seiko (for example) have been homaging other brands for many years

We should never compare our standards or expectations with people from other countries. In the UK a married couple could both work full time in jobs that aren't highly paid, yet still own their own house, a car, and have a foreign holiday once a year. In China this may not be possible, but if it was the case your washing machine would probably have cost three times as much

Big companies pay better loans because they don´t want a shitstorm, but chines brands like this don´t care and for this money i´m 100% sure they don´t work there because they want.

I think they can keep the brand name where it is, but that logo has to go.

I used to have a Mondaine Swiss Railway watch. I always liked that style of watch and I got what seemed to be a good deal of $125. Its second hand was way off, and I'm usually not hypercritical about that, but you would think a lollipop second hand could come pretty close to its markers. But the hour hand was also about 5 minutes off, very noticeable on this watch. I ended up giving it away.

I still liked that design, and recently bought a Berny copy. It's a close copy but not exact. And for $18, it's a better watch than the Mondaine in almost every way.