Earlier this week I noticed an intriguing announcement from Kurono, a Japanese microbrand that generates interest and a loyal following by releasing extremely low quantities of watches: they were making a watch designed for women and intending to only have women own the watch. The design of the Seiji isn’t a huge departure from their usual models: Tiffany blue dial, light-colored strap, but otherwise identical to their catalog. The pictures hooked me so I decided to investigate a bit further and found this on their website:
Good on Kurono for noticing that their customer base has room to grow through increasing their market share within the female segment of watch collectors. But then they start diving into sexist tropes about family roles and gender stereotypes, oof. If you want to read the full original announcement, you can still find it in web archives. I especially enjoyed this bit:
We have no doubt that men will want to acquire it and pair it with a black or dark strap for their own use. But we are making this process a whole lot harder.
I guess I should be tossing all of my black and blue ostrich straps since apparently women prefer lighter colored ones.
And then, there was this:
All existing customers for both watches and accessories will be given a nomination ballot priority to a greater or lesser degree respectively. We are cognizant that this move may significantly limit our market reach and demand, but we think it will be worth the effort if this increases the diversity of KURONO collectors.
1) Please nominate your partner/wife/girlfriend to acquire the watch
2) If there are more nominations than allocations, a balloting process will occur
3) If successful your nominee will be contacted to complete the purchase process
So in order for a woman to buy this watch, she would have to be nominated by an existing customer and as Kurono already observed, 95% of their existing customers are men. So, you end up having a situation where in order to obtain a watch designed for a woman, she would be stuck relying on a man to help her obtain it. If Kurono’s goal was to celebrate the empowerment of women, gatekeeping a watch designed for women like this did the exact opposite. It was extremely paternalistic and frankly offensive when women still struggle to gain respect and credibility within the watch industry and collector circles.
I sent this question to Kurono: “Why/how was the nomination process going to expand your reach in the female market when it was so heavily weighted towards your previous customers, 95% of which are men?” I will update when and if I ever get an answer.
Thankfully, Kurono reversed course within about 24 hours and revised the allocation process to remove the “nominations” aspect, and firmly stated that expressions of interest by women would be prioritized at every step.
To me, this should have been obvious as a solution from the beginning as it seems to be the most equitable way of ensuring that women receive priority for the watch while honoring their existing female customers.
So, let’s take a look at what Kurono did wrong and what they did right.
Things Kurono did wrong:
– Allowed very sexist marketing language to be associated with their brand. While the brand has purged the original campaign from their website and social media, you can still find cached images, and even without them, the memory of this bungle will last for quite a while.
– Made generalizations about what women and men each prefer. If the conversation about gendered (or not) watches has shown us anything over the last year, it is that there is no universal rule on preferences and manufacturers should design watches that first represent the brand design language and let the market decide if – and to whom – it sells. Given the popularity of Kurono, they can afford to be a bit experimental in their designs when exploring new markets.
– Their apology is a classic corporate non-apology as they apologized for “causing negative sentiment” instead of directly owning up to the flaws in their initial plan. A proper apology would have acknowledged the sexism inherent in their original plan and outlined the steps they will take to ensure that nothing similar will see the light of day.
Things Kurono did right:
– Reversed course to remove the gatekeeping aspect of the allocation process. The new allocation process meets their original goal and respects the agency of female customers when deciding what they want to buy and how they want to buy it.
– Opened up more watches to the general public. Under the original plan, a full 70% of the watches would go to existing customers (or women in their lives), which seemed to undermine the stated goal of expanding their customer base. With the new allocation process, 50% of the watches will go to new customers.
– Maintained their initial goal of expanding their reach into the female market segment instead of bowing to the howls of the watch neckbeards. Many of the (now deleted) comments on the original Instagram announcement were protesting the targeting of the watch towards women because it excluded men. As a woman who has been repeatedly steered towards the “female appropriate” watch, tool set, and car despite my explicit interest in something else, all I could do is roll my eyes at these comments. I’m glad Kurono held their ground in this respect.
So, was their recovery and revision of the allocation process a success? Initially, yes, but I’ll be holding final judgment until Seiji watches start hitting wrists. Based on the stated allocation procedures, there should be very few watches that are shipped to men directly from Kurono. Judging from the initial response to the release, there are more than 250 women who are interested in the watch so there should be no reason why any of the watches allocated for new customers and the majority of watches allocated for existing customers should be shipped to men. Where they end up after they arrive at the name on Kurono’s order form is not something the brand can control, no matter how hard they might try.
So what can other brands learn from this? Mainly, that you don’t need to make an overtly gendered watch in order to create a watch that sells to your intended market segment. Tastes are not universal and if your watch has a good design, it will appeal to the people you want to target. Marketing matters more in this respect – represent your target customer in your marketing and they will see themselves wearing your watch. A secondary lesson is that imposing obstacles for your target customer to obtain your watch will backfire, especially for a small brand with limited market share among watch collectors in general. Hopefully, this was a learning experience for everyone involved and we will not see a repeat debacle in the future.
