A Montblanc watch with a moon phase complication
Germany’s Montblanc is using Chinese consumers’ interest in astrology to promote its latest timepieces with moon phase complications through a social application.
Montblanc recently unveiled its Meisterstück Heritage Perpetual Calendar and Bohème Perpetual Calendar jewelry watches, both of which include the popular moon phase complications to display the lunar cycle. Though many watchmakers create watches with this type of complication, only Montblanc has pinpointed this element to appeal to a specific market of consumers.
“The moonphase complication is a feature that you can find among many luxury watch brands, so it was important to find a unique angle,” said Elsie Zhang, digital key account manager at Digital Luxury Group, Shanghai.
“As a lifetime companion brand, Montblanc has been one of the most active and innovative watch brands in China, and it made perfect sense to support this ambition with our campaign,” she said. “By definition, a successful social media campaign is built on the engagement generated and one of the key criteria is to build an emotional connection with the audience.
“In China, astrology is very popular and commonly referenced in daily life; it appeared as a natural way to connect individuals to Montblanc.”
Montblanc worked with Digital Luxury Group to create this initiative.
Your side of the moon
In Chinese culture, it is commonly believed that the waxing and waning of the moon has an effect on our environment and on people’s lives. In China, astrology is referenced with regard to daily life, so it makes sense for Montblanc to target Chinese consumers in this manner while minding cultural affinities.
Montblanc’s “Explore the Mystic Moon Phase” application, which launched on Nov. 10, combines the moon phase complication and lunar shifts in real time. To capture the consumer’s attention and drive usage of the app, optimized for both desktop and mobile devices, the brand designed a “eye-catching dynamic” QR code rather than the static traditional version.
Montblanc’s moon phase QR code
Both the desktop and mobile versions of Explore the Mystic Moon Phase app fully integrates popular social networking platform WeChat. The integrating of WeChat into Montblanc’s effort ensures a multi-dimensional experience for consumers.
On either version, consumers are encouraged to enter their gender and birth date. With this information Explore the Mystic Moon Phase generates a report about how the consumer’s birth moon phase reflects their personality, work, hobbies, love life and marriage.
The effort results also tells the consumer the position of the moon on their birthday and how a watch face with a moon phase complication looked the day of their birth.
Beginning slide of the moon phase report generator
To further authenticate the information provided by the effort, Montblanc included renowned astrology author Wang Xiaoya to analyze the birth moon phase. Ms. Xiaoya’s involvement provides Montblanc with an authority on moon phases that without her assistance, may have seem inauthentic.
By including the moon phase reports of personalities, such as badminton world champion Lin Dan and actress Guey Lun Mei, and a section with detailed information about the lunar cycle, Montblanc has created a well-rounded interactive experience for consumers. This degree of interaction tied with cultural sentiment will likely work to keep Montblanc and its watches top-of-mind.
“Consumers in China are overwhelmed with receiving branded advertising messages that in the end are quite similar,” Ms. Zhang said. “It was a unique opportunity to develop, for the first time, a talking point like this and to associate the brand to a highly relevant and popular topic in China.
“For this reason we believe Montblanc and its Bohème and Meisterstück collections will remain associated to it,” she said.
WeChat hits
Montblanc has looked to WeChat in the past to interact with Chinese consumers in a fashion that appeals to local sensibilities.
For example, Montblanc aimed to increase engagement among Chinese consumers through an in-application game on social network WeChat.
With approximately 396 million active users per month, WeChat is seen as a gateway to interacting with Chinese consumers on mobile. Montblanc’s game, “Daban,” is being hailed as an unprecedented move by a luxury brand as it goes beyond the traditional touchpoints used on the social channel (see story).
WeChat lets brands personalize their efforts to a particular demographic rather than a wide ranging global campaign.
Yoox, the official ecommerce partner of Kering, teamed up with Chinese social communication application WeChat to enhance its consumers’ mobile shopping experience.
As part of the global partnership, Yoox created new official accounts for the United States and Italy on WeChat, as well as revamping its existing Chinese account. Tapping into WeChat’s platform for social shopping will allow Yoox to make the mobile commerce experience more personal for consumers, giving access to live chat and messages from the retailer (see story).
Due to WeChat’s intimate format, consumers will be more likely to share with their immediate circle of loved ones, rather than their whole network, which may dilute the possibility of brand conversions.
“WeChat offers a higher level of privacy than the other social media platforms, as the social network where the Chinese audience is the most keen to share personal information to their close circle of friends,” Ms. Zhang said. “As a consequence, it is the most appropriate platform, considering the local netizens behavior, to share one’s personal moon phase profile.
“At the same time for the brand, it is a unique way to penetrate the users social feed, WeChat Moments, through personal and spontaneous user posts,” she said. “Not only has this campaign increased the visibility of Montblanc on WeChat, it also created word-of-mouth within the personal circles of users’ WeChat Moments.”
Final Take
Jen King, lead reporter on Luxury Daily, New York