So to start with I work at an AD that carry’s multiple Swiss brands from $350 price points all the way up to pre-owned PP, AP, of course Rolex, Cartier, etc. Since we are not an AD for those higher brands I like to focus on the brands that we are an AD for and one of them is Longines.

Disclaimer, the company has been great to me and wonderful to work with, that withstanding however, I am a huge fan. I think they offer exceptional value per dollar and I am keen on their vintage leaning design language rich history in the world of aviation.

So that is the why of my question, my actual question is How does the general watch enthusiast on Reddit feel about how the brand is positioning themselves in the market from any aspect such as price point, design language, marketing, public outreach, whatever. What makes them a solid or not so solid brand?

Thank you! I’m trying to get my team fired up about Longines and I want to know what people besides the people I work with think about Longines! Wrist shot of my heritage chrono for some tax.

TLDR: Do you like or dislike Longines and why?

  • MrGrentch@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Longines have an incredible heritage. Which in some ways is part of their problem in the current market. Heritage. They were more a brand of the first half of the 20th century and didn’t translate as well as others like Omega or Rolex to the second half and into the common market consciousness of today.

    Heritage? They(along with Omega and Zenith) dominated the Swiss chronometer trials and took the top spot in most prizes awarded. They won more in single years than Rolex won in the entire span of the trials. Brands like Patek didn’t even figure. Oddly even then Longines’ marketing was weird. They pushed the “World’s most honoured watch” but sold few official chronometer tested watches.

    They have a history in aviation, particularly the pioneering days, that brands like IWC or Breitling could only dream about. They were the inhouse chronograph producer in the first half of the 20th century, pretty much everyone else bought in movements. They invented the flyback and the two button chronograph(not Breitling as is often claimed. Well you kinda need a second pusher for flyback). They had ‘calatrava’ style cases before Patek, so came up with that modern style before them. External bezels on near every diver’s watch? Longines had them decades before, but for pilots(interestingly their patent ran out in 1951 and modern divers came out a couple of years later. Probably a coincidence, but interesting). First second timezone on a watch. They along with Girard Perregaux were the first to get into higher frequency movements. When the race for quartz was kicking in they were part of the Swiss beta dev team and had enough spare capacity to develop their own inhouse quartz and bring it to market(and later brought thermocompensation to quartz).

    When Vacheron Constantin and Jaeger LeCoultre, big hitters today in the top end segment, wanted to penetrate the US market in the 40’s and bypass taxes on imports, who did they partner up with? Longines, who had already been shipping 200k movements per year through their Longines Wittnauer factory, to create LeCoultre watches for that market. Longines were huge back then and high quality. VC and JLC didn’t have to worry about them stealing designs.

    It’s post the 1980’s where it went south. They never had a ‘Bond watch’ or any other current famous person watch, real or fictional. They didn’t have a ‘space watch’ and though they certainly had a long history of military issued watches they never really promoted that. They stopped production of inhouse mechanical movements in the 70’s, so missed out on the new “mechanical has soul” stuff. They timed lots of sports events, but again didn’t really push that cohesively enough. Their historical branding was less clear and often scattergun. No distinct and easy to recall lines of Seamasters/Submariners etc

    Most of all they were lumbered with SWATCH’s tiers. They couldn’t compete with Omega and even today you get the sense they’re not allowed to. They’re often subdued even almost apologetic with promoting themselves. They ‘stay in lane’. Which is a pity.