Richard Mille’s Great Marketing & PR
Swiss watchmaking brand Richard Mille took the world by storm with their colorful high-end watches. And one of the ways that they managed to get shoulder to shoulder with other big watch brands, such as Rolex or Patek Philipe, is through clever marketing and public relations strategies.
The goal of one of the founders of the brand, Richard Mille himself, was to create a new high-end luxury brand within the already existing high-end watch industry, which meant that one of the things that made up the brand’s identity was the price of the new watches.
Aside from the high price, the brand also makes its products more attractive to the narrow segment of the target audience by limiting availability. According to some sources, the annual production of Richard Mille is about 5,000 watches. Additionally, the entry-level price of a Richard Mille watch starts around $80,000 USD, while the most expensive piece in the current portfolio of the brand is about $2,000,000 USD.
Marketing of the watches
The way that the brand advertises its watches is by claiming that they are a “racing machine on the wrist,” along with highlights on the unique materials and the attention-grabbing designs featured on them. Thus, these watches are worn during important sporting events by various notable people within the industry, such as F1 driver Felipe Massa, tennis player Rafael Nadal, and football player Odell Beckham Jr. All of these things combined have had a noticeable impact on the popularity of the brand and the watches themselves.
The goal of the brand is to place the watches in unexpected places, and this way, the brand is able to get the message across to a bigger audience, without the use of many words. All that the audience needs to see is the flashy timepiece on any field. This is enough for anyone’s attention to be focused solely on the watch itself. After that, plenty of younger people became interested in the brand and its watches.
Niche market
This is a brand that focused on a very specific niche market and decided not to follow the traditional business model when it comes to running the business. Every year, Richard Mille launches a small number of watches and pays a lot of attention to the details and the materials that the watches are made with. Employing uncommon materials and combining them with luxury prices quickly turned this brand into a success.
Furthermore, the brand is only sold in its own boutiques, as well as several resellers. The marketing strategies that Richard Mille brand employs impact a small number of people, instead of targeting thousands, which has proven to be a very profitable strategy. This means that the brand decided to take a completely different approach compared to other competitor brands, which seek to provide value while putting an emphasis on price competitiveness. That’s how the brand has managed to create its own niche in a popular market, and stand out from the crowd.
Ronn Torossian is the CEO and Founder of 5W Public Relations. 5W PR is a leading digital pr and influencer marketing agency.
