Luxury Watches Identity as an Expression of Status: The Case of Patek Philippe

1. Research Background

2. Literature Review
2.1 Personal Values
2.2 Social Recognition
2.3 Interview and Self-administrated Surveys

3. The Research Methodological Approach

4. References

5. Appendix

1. Research Background

In the luxury watches business, building a trustworthy brand is important. Customers like to feel that they are purchasing established and reliable brands. The criteria for success as brand-named watches include: good brand images, unique marketing strategies, and concepts that differentiate their products from their competitors. To develop such an identity, it is necessary to first learn what customers want from watches and then send a clear message that their products can fulfil customers’ expectations and emotions better than their competitors.

Patek Philippe, the one of the ultra-luxury watch brand in the world, launches a new advertising film that brings to life the “Generations” campaign concept. It is based on the insight that a man has a unique emotional attachment to his watch often promoted by his father or generator handing it down. The campaign using the slogan “You never actually own a Patek Philippe, you merely look after it for the next generation.” Most of the Patek Phillie watches are simple designed and are less recognizable, but they are much costly than Rolex. People purchase Patek Philippe because of its craftsmanship and art value, they do not care the brand is well recognized by the public or not. Patek Philippe believes their customers are looking for the social image not only status, but also being good taste and classy. However, people purchase Rolex or Omega are purely to seek for the social recognition. They want to be defined as wealthy and successful. They also focus on the functions of the watches such as diving, speed measuring. The research is to find out the differences of mindsets between ultra-luxury watches customers and luxury watches customers.

2. Literature Review
2.1 Personal Values

People are more likely to compare their material to other individuals, because material possessions are publicly visible and easy to compare. Consumers are less likely to compare experiential service to someone else’s because experiences are less conspicuous than material possessions. The luxury products give people the feeling of superior, social approval, and self-respect. According to Yang and Mattila (2014), some people try to distance themselves from people in a lower class, by mimicking the behaviours of people in a higher class. Besides, some people are more compliant and generous to people who display luxury and are been willing to pay a cost to those items.

2.2 Social Recognition

The luxury product’s brand identity represents certain levels of social status. According to Nelissen and Meijers (2010), status is defined as a higher position compared to others on things such as academic, work skill, physical attractiveness, or wealth. People purchase luxury products to gain higher status or the appearance of high status. Truong, Simmons, McColl, and Kitchen (2008) state, status and conspicuousness are two of the most important dimensions of luxury brands. Status-laden brands may be purchased for internal reasons that are self-award or external reasons that are signalling wealth. Conspicuous brands are those that are purchased for purely external reason. Conspicuous brands hold more communicate values such as Rolex watches, which is the iconic brand that easily recognized by people. Consumers could buy similar brands with even higher quality and price, but those similar brands might not have the same communicative power for conveying status.

2.3 Interview and Self-administrated Surveys

The research will be conduct by using surveys. A survey can generally be divided into two categories such as Interview Surveys and Self-administered Surveys. The types of Interview Surveys are personal and telephone and the Self-administered Surveys are questionnaires via the Internet. According to Blumberg, Cooper, and Schindler (2008) who argue that the Interview Surveys are more effective than Self-administered Surveys since during the personal or telephone interview, the interviewer could explain more effectively the meanings of survey questions or probe for answers from the participants. Besides, the highly skilled interviewers can be used in order to reduce the interview bias. According to Yu, Cooper (1983), Kanuk, Cinard (1975), Nuckols (1964), and O’Dell (1962), their experiments clearly demonstrate that Internet mail surveys appear to be less effective than personal or telephone interview surveys in generating true responses. In contrast, Greg (2003) states that Self-administered Surveys are able to cost less in money, time, and labour.

The author supports the view that Interview Surveys emphasise that the quality of the findings could be achieved by the interviewer’s skills and techniques. In my opinion, although Interview Surveys are more costly and time consuming, the quality of the data will be more explicit and precise than Self-administered Surveys. Self-administered Surveys usually have a lower response rate and the content cannot be too complex.

Interview survey Self-administered Survey
– Research can explain the survey
– Probe for answer, follow-up questions
– Highly skilled interviewers
– Fast completion – Lower cost in money, time, and labour

-Allow respondents time to think about questions

4. The Research Methodological Approach

The project objective is to investigate 200 business employees or business owners between ages 25 to 45 with education above Bachelor’s Degree in the UK. The Quantitative approach will be used in my research. I will use both Interview Surveys and Self-administered Surveys and combine the findings. For data analysis, the SPSS software will be used to look for tendencies and further analyse their reasons.

5. References

Nelissen, R. and Meijers, M. (2010) ‘Social benefits of luxury brands as costly signals of wealth and status’, Evolution and Human Behaviour, 32, pp. 343-355.

Truong, Y. and Simmons, G. and McColl, R. and Kitchen, P. (2008) ‘Status and conspicuousness – are they related? strategic marketing’, Journal of Strategic Marketing, 16(3), pp. 189-203.

Yang, W. and Mattila, A. (2013) ‘Do affluent customers care when luxury brands go mass?’, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 26(4), pp. 526-543.

Blumberg, B., Cooper, D. and Schindler, P. (2008) Business research methods. 2nd edn. Berkshire: McGraw-Hill Education.

Yu, J. and Cooper, H. (1983) ‘A quantitative review of research design effects on response rate to questionnaires’, Journal o Marketing Research, 10, pp. 36-44.

Greig, I. (2003) ‘Toward a typology of consumer survey research’, European Journal of Marketing, 37(10), pp. 1314-1331.
6. Appendix
Diagrammatic Work Plan

1st ~7th, May 8th ~ 14th, May 15th ~31st, May
Introduction & Literature Review Research Design &
Methodology Data collection

1st ~ 14th, June 15th ~ 30th, June 1st to 7th July
SPSS Analysis & Findings Recommendations, Limitations, Conclusion

8st ~ 14th, July
Final Revision