AP x Swatch Royal Pop Launch Turned Into Chaos
What was meant to be a glamorous luxury watch launch turned into scenes of pushing, crowd surges and police intervention across cities worldwide. The launch of the limited-edition Audemars Piguet x Swatch “Royal Pop” watches descended into disorder in cities including Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Paris, London and New York after massive crowds gathered outside stores hoping to buy the watches.
In Paris, police reportedly used tear gas to disperse crowds outside a Swatch store, while stores in parts of the UK shut down over safety fears. Videos from Indian cities showed fans climbing barricades, arguing with security staff and pushing through crowds.
AP Wanted a Safe, Positive Experience
WIRED contacted Swatch asking why, considering the wealth of evidence from the ill-received MoonSwatch launch, did it repeat the rollout strategy with the AP collaboration. We got this response from their communications team in Switzerland blaming shopping mall security, despite incidents at Swatch’s own stores outside of malls.
“The Royal Pop Collection has been phenomenal worldwide, and demand is extremely high. In around 20 Swatch stores out of a total of 220 stores globally where the Royal Pop was launched, challenges arose on launch day because the queues of interested customers were exceptionally long, and the organization of some shopping malls was not sufficient to handle this level of turnout,” the statement says.
In the statement, Swatch even admits the weekend’s happening are “similar to the first day of the MoonSwatch launch in March 2022” and that “the situation has now normalized somewhat after the launch day.”
Hype With No Control
“Luxury drops cannot rely on surprise, scarcity, and social frenzy as the strategy, then act surprised when human behavior follows,” says author of The Science of Shopping and adviser to brands including Disney, Mastercard, Klarna, and American Express. “Retailers are already dealing with heightened tensions around theft, aggression, and crowd management globally. Add a highly restricted product, long queues, resale economics, social media amplification, and the emotional intensity attached to luxury access, and the environment can escalate very quickly if not expertly managed.”
Hardcastle confirms that what is particularly difficult for Swatch here is that the MoonSwatch launch already provided a live blueprint of the risks. “Once a brand has experienced scenes involving crowd surges, disappointment, and policing,” she says, “the obligation shifts from reacting to proactively engineering a safer customer experience. Successful luxury houses increasingly control the experience with far greater precision.”
Neil Saunders, managing director of retail at Global Data, is even more candid. “The chaos does not reflect well on Swatch, and it probably makes Audemars Piguet wonder what on Earth it has gotten itself into,” he says. “Wanting to create some hype is understandable, but not being able to control it becomes damaging both commercially and for the brand image. Swatch should understand this better than most as it has been through this before with MoonSwatch.”
Not only Saunders and Hardcastle, but scores of commenters on Swatch’s Instagram post, point out well-known and obvious solutions that would have mitigated or entirely avoided the Royal Pop’s shambolic release.