Watches

It has the same name as an old shitty TV brand, it's not helping

their football helmets are ugly

I think the general public-to-watch enthusiast continuum breaks out like this:

1. That person is wearing a watch (and it goes no farther)
2. That person has a watch but it's not an Apple Watch etc.
3. That person has a digital watch or a watch with hands
4. That person has a nice watch on their arm (or an ugly one)
5. That person has a cheap Timex or an expensive Rolex
6. That person has a Timex/Casio/Citizen/Armitron, or Rolex/Omega
7. Everything else (for brevity's sake)

By the time you get to level 5 above, you have covered probably 99% of the population.

Maybe some of them have seen or heard of Fossil or other "fashion brands"/Department store offerings, or seen a Tag/Breitling/Longines/Cartier commercial, but I'm betting most of them wouldn't remember the brand name afterwards. They don't care.

A scant few will know of Bulova, Seiko, maybe Hamilton. Some of this, whether Bulova or Rolex, is due to advertising, or having seen Rolex or Omega banners /product placement at sporting events.

The number of people who have ever heard of Sinn, Oris, Grand Seiko, Glycine, Tutima, Alpina, Helson, on and on = very very small.

And accordingly, the number of people of who know about AP PP VC LAS JLC etc. is quite small, in part because how many people can actually afford one, and be interested in obtaining one? We know about them, because we like watches. Well, at least some of us.

I like watches for a multitude of reasons. But none of them are related to hoping someone recognizes me as having an expensive watch. A cool watch? Yes. An interesting one? Certainly. And I'll likely bore somebody to death if they make the mistake of asking about my watch ("Oh wow, man, did you know this is a handwound using the ETA 6497 with a neat small seconds dial at the 9 o'clock position, whereas the 6498 ...").

If you don’t already wear a watch, why would you know about watch brands?

Nobody’s rapped about wearing a Zenith

Sorry, I personally hate all LVMH brands

The red star doesn’t help either.

Look, for 99.9% of the population, only Rolex has luxury watch brand recognition. When you get to Zenith, IWC, Jaeger, etc., few know or care. It's just the .1% max. Probably more like .001%.

Lots of people recognize the name as a generic 80s/90s tube TV

Usually when I tell people I have a Zenith people say "Like the TV?" But at least I won't be getting much attention from muggers, right?

A lot of brands have that issue with people, sadly.

Aside from little to no marketing, what else do they have outside of the Chronomaster? Shoot, even watch enthusiasts sort of glaze over everything they have. The Elite? Boring (I love em tho!) Defy? 70s recycled design.

Second, their designs probably dont captivate people. This is a guess and my bias showing because I only really like 5 models in total.

Last, when it comes to Luxury, people like brand recognition! Some of their models compete with Rolex and Omega at MSRP. You can hype with a Cartier or even Brietling as well, which also are recognizable in a way.

Wellcome to luxury... Brand recognition is determined by marketing and ads. How often do you see a Zenith ad?

The reason people recognise say Omega is because Omega seem to shove ads everywhere you look, billboards, Olympics, James Bond movies and so on. Without that Omega would be less known than Zenith probably.

It's got a high price point for watches that look too much like other more well known watches.

If they want to distinguish themselves they need to come out with a good design that's unique to themselves and market it heavily.

Like how breitling has the navitimer.

Why do people who don't care about watches not care about zenith?

I suppose you are American. In my country all men at some points buy an important watch, and usually they are or omega or zenith.

It is kind of normal to get the gold zenith omega of the grandfather of father at some point in life.

Most people simply don't care

Most people don’t even care about watches. Besides in today’s economy I’d rather people not recognise my watches.

That's why I'm proud, and still feel safe wearing mine

Don’t most brands have poor recognition with “non-watch people”… whoever they are. Also, who gives a fuck if no one recognises your watch. Buy if you like it and wear it if want to.

I wear a Speedmaster, which is basically the most common luxuary watch.

Not once in five years of daily wear have I gotten a comment about it. I don't really care about that either. Why is the brand recognition so important for you? You need everyone to know you wear a expensive watch? In that case, buy a rolex. But 90% of people will assume it's a fake:)

I'm nowhere near Zenith league but I think I'd rather have a handful of people a year really love my watch than 5 people a day saying "Wow is that a real Rolex?"

Lack of knowledge Give time to time ;)

My guy, we're talking watches here, in 2023. Laypeople recognize 3 of them: A Rolex, a G shock, and the apple watch.

1. They’re not recognized as exorbitant wealth like Rolex, Patek or AP in modern culture. All of the biggest celebrities usually have one of these 3 on their wrist.

2. The average consumer can’t put 1:1 and recognize them as a expensive product because they’re not found in every major mall. Like Omega, TAG & Breitling… even brands like Tissot & Citizen capitalize on this.

I used to work with a guy that had a Panerai, an old school Heuer Autavia chronograph, a Junkers and a Nomos. This dude was cool and was the one who ultimately got me into buying high end watches (at the time I was just wearing stuff like Invicta and convincing myself that I didn’t want a Rolex). Within a few months I’d gone through a number of different brands buying and selling my way through the world of Swiss watches (I’d purchased a Brietljng Colt, a TAG Heuer Carrera and more) eventually I’d purchased a Zenith El Primero and he’d never heard of it before, he even did some of his own watch servicing but hadn’t heard of Zenith.

Very much a personal opinion, but I think the tricolour subdials look tacky as hell, and it's a really strong part of their identity. That's just me though. I've heard they're solidly made.

I bought mine 20 years ago. They invented the first fly back Chronograph and the originally provided the movement for the Rolex Daytona. There are lots of watches that still use the el primero movement today. All of that to say I think they make some beautiful watches. I love mine!

https://preview.redd.it/7q6y7n4sjkvb1.jpeg?width=3853&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5594598b7f1d6396fe25142cba4249f367b347c6

Marketing, or lack of it.

Let me answer by asking you two questions:

1. do you know who is the strongest chess player?

2. who do you think is a better chess player, Maxim Vachier Lagrave or Levon Aronian?

I actually enjoy the watch brand being stealth. If the public all know the brand then that is basically painting a target on your back that says mug me.

Marketing.

IMO because it’s not Rolex. It’s not so under the radar in watch circles, but outside of that 99% of everything out there is under the radar.