Embargoes, Soft Leaks And The Effect Of Pre-Launch Hype
5 min read
According to Clayton Christensen, a professor at Harvard Business School, of the 30,000 new products introduced every year, 95% fail. The vulnerability to absolute oblivion is omnipresent for brands of all reputes and ranks. Be it Google, Sony, Coca Cola or Ford, none is immune to flops when it comes to product launches. The market saturation makes it very hard for brands to come up with products that create a lasting impact. Among the many make-ups of a successful product, a compelling launch strategy is the absolute imperative in attracting instant interest among prospect audiences.
The planning and execution of a successful product launch is a making of a few proven tactics, among which a synchronized coverage across media outlets, retailers, and influencers plays a key role in allowing for a grand, unified launch moment. That’s exponential anticipation, reach, and impact. All of this is a doing of something we know as “embargo.”
What’s An Embargo?
In traditional media terms, an embargo is a request or requirement by a brand or PR agency that certain information (usually about an upcoming product) not be published before a specified date and time. In the context of the watch industry, embargoes have historically been treated with almost sacred seriousness. Brands meticulously plan launch dates, coordinate press releases, and sometimes even enforce strict NDAs to ensure that new models debut with maximum impact through synchronized coverage.
In the build-up to a successful product launch, embargos allow journalists ample time to prepare powerful stories and for the brands, it helps create a bigger buzz by simultaneous publishing of the same story by multiple media outlets. Yet, the watch industry plays around embargos as brands tease products before official release dates with high-profile ambassadors flaunting yet to be released watches on social media or at public events.
A Calculated Cultivation Of Hype
The marketing theatre operational in the watch industry has been a space of consistent adjustment with the very fluid market dynamics. When trends and mass-market preferences face rapid shifts, it is natural for brands to bulge and respond with tactics that attract maximum reach and impact. Many times, it occurs as a deliberate teasing of products as “subtle leaks” seem not only okay, but almost encouraged or even enforced by brands.
These teasers of a product become instant virals and social media tends to explode over endless speculation. This kicking-in of the hype machine before the actual embargo date is touted as a calculated marketing strategy and a deliberate tactic to incite conversation and excitement around certain releases.
The Strategic Product Leak
For the watch industry, much like fashion and tech, it has become an established realization that hype works as currency. Although traditional-style trade fairs like Watches and Wonders continue to hold significant relevance alongside digital storytelling, brands now have to control the narrative differently. Much of what used to be an exclusive, once-a-year moment, is now a year-round game of relevancy and attention.
In this new context, embargoes can be tactically twisted. Sometimes, having a high-profile personality wear an unreleased piece becomes a soft launch strategy, generating curiosity and excitement far beyond what a scheduled press release could achieve. Here’s why it works.
A known-face wearing a yet-to-be-seen watch feels more genuine than a campaign tactic.
It lends the community better connection with the product, creating organic engagement.
By the time the official launch happens and the embargoes lift, the product already has buzz and identity.
Brands can even gauge reaction before launch and even tweak marketing or messaging accordingly.
But Doesn’t This Undermine Traditional Media?
Yes, and no. For traditional journalists and media outlets who play by the rules, seeing embargoes intentionally broken (although very carefully and subtly) without consequence can be not-so-favorable. From the brand’s perspective, it signals a shift in marketing hierarchy. The social capital of a “celebrity leak” undoubtedly outweighs a text review, especially when virality is the goal.
It’s all down to star influence!
Yet, when it comes to actual substance and knowledge, influence trails information. The vice versa works only for hype cultivation. Embargoes are essential for impactful storytelling and work as competent tools to strategically project a new release, multiplying the exhibit of its technical and competitive nuances, more than just a showcase of its pop-culture permeance. In many ways, such orchestrated teases play as favorable buildup to the information that follows.
Embargoes In An Evolving Marketing Paradigm
When it comes to product launches and media coverage, timing is crucial. What works in favor of brands, both independents and large-scale manufacturers, is to get the right marketing content to the destined audiences at the right moment. Managing the timing of it becomes vital to create impact around the announcement or launch. Here, embargoing the detailed media kits and high-value previews of new watches for a simultaneous release across multiple media outlets creates greater reach and a much stronger impact from the launch.
In special regards to “indies” or independents, embargoing new product releases works as a tactic for key marketing gains by coordinating a successful and impactful product launch. When brands invest months (or even years) in R&D for a product, creating a marketing narrative for it, and its rollout planning, a strong launch across media channels is an imperative objective, and embargoes very much facilitate the said.
So, whenever there occur, intentional or otherwise, premature disclosures of embargoes, the pre-planned strategy for a product launch gets disrupted and severely undercuts the brand’s efforts. In case of the supposed leak of the MB&F M.A.D 2, where either a collector, retailer or a journalist mistimed the release, a lot of the anticipation and reaction with the brand expected for the scheduled launch was severely diminished. For this to happen to a brand which thrives on anticipation, hype and surprise, that’s a legitimate detriment.
Today, embargo has become a very fluid tactic and an evolving strategy. When brands let the “right kind” of leaks happen, in the “right way,” to build organic hype, and then follow it with a clean, structured launch for the wider market, it becomes controlled disruption.
