The Catastrophic Swatch x Audemars Piguet Launch Was Entirely Predictable and Utterly Avoidable
The Catastrophic Swatch x Audemars Piguet Launch Was Entirely Predictable and Utterly Avoidable
Swatch 与爱彼（Audemars Piguet）联名发售的灾难性场面：完全可以预见且本可避免
At 9 am, as stores opened, London’s Carnaby Street location lasted half an hour before police were called. In New York, fights broke out amid rumors of a stabbing in the line. At locations around the world, police had to assist staff as the vast majority of customers left empty-handed, since most of the shops had fewer than 200 watches available. Deals were done within queues as scalpers flipped watches for profit. Within minutes of the first sales, the plastic watches were hitting eBay for thousands of dollars. 早上 9 点，随着门店开门营业，伦敦卡纳比街（Carnaby Street）的门店仅坚持了半小时，警方就被召集到场。在纽约，排队人群中传出有人被刺伤的谣言，随后爆发了斗殴。在全球各地的门店，由于大多数店铺的库存不足 200 只，绝大多数顾客最终空手而归，警方不得不协助店员维持秩序。排队的人群中充斥着交易，黄牛们转手倒卖以牟取暴利。销售开始后的几分钟内，这些塑料手表在 eBay 上的价格就被炒到了数千美元。
This is not a description of what happened during Saturday’s Swatch x Audemars Piguet Royal Pop launch; this is an account of the 2022 MoonSwatch launch. But a carbon copy of this chaos and mayhem ensued as Swatch stores opened worldwide on May 16 to sell their extremely limited numbers of Royal Pop pocket watches. 这并不是对周六 Swatch 与爱彼（Audemars Piguet）联名推出的 Royal Pop 系列发售现场的描述，而是 2022 年 MoonSwatch 发售时的情景。然而，当 5 月 16 日 Swatch 全球门店开售数量极其有限的 Royal Pop 怀表时，同样的混乱与骚动再次上演。
Responding to widespread criticism of how Swatch handled the 2022 MoonSwatch launch, Nick Hayek Jr., chief executive of Swatch Group, told WIRED at the time: “We knew for sure this would be a success, because the product is beautiful, provocative, high quality, and the price is fantastic … But what happened … I think nobody in the world could have expected that. It was really crazy.” 针对 2022 年 MoonSwatch 发售时 Swatch 处理方式引发的广泛批评，Swatch 集团首席执行官小尼克·海耶克（Nick Hayek Jr.）当时告诉《连线》（WIRED）杂志：“我们确信这会成功，因为产品既美观、具有挑衅性、质量上乘，价格又非常棒……但发生的事情……我想世界上没有人能预料到。这真的太疯狂了。”
Hayek’s defense was essentially that Swatch could not be held accountable for disturbances so severe that some stores were forced to shut for 10 days to let the pandemonium play out, simply because the group could never have predicted the ferocious public reaction to an affordable version of an iconic luxury timepiece coming on sale. No such excuse can be offered this time for the calamitous Royal Pop launch that took place this weekend. 海耶克的辩解本质上是说，Swatch 不应对如此严重的骚乱负责——当时一些门店被迫关闭 10 天以平息混乱——理由仅仅是集团无法预料到公众对一款标志性奢侈腕表的平价版本会有如此狂热的反应。然而，对于本周末发生的灾难性 Royal Pop 发售活动，Swatch 再也无法提供类似的借口。
Chaos Foreshadowed
混乱的预兆
Even before the first stores opened in Singapore on Saturday, 12 hours ahead of New York, the clear pattern of what was to follow was established. The VivoCity branch was shuttered ahead of the much-anticipated launch, with Swatch issuing a statement that it was “due to the overwhelming crowd” and that this decision was taken with local authorities to ensure the health and safety of staff and customers. 甚至在周六新加坡门店（比纽约早 12 小时）开门之前，后续事件的清晰模式就已经显现。怡丰城（VivoCity）分店在备受期待的发售前被迫关闭，Swatch 发表声明称这是“由于人群过于拥挤”，并表示该决定是与当地政府协商后做出的，旨在确保员工和顾客的健康与安全。
Then it was Dubai. “In view of safety considerations, we have decided not to proceed with the sale of the [Swatch x Audemars Piguet Royal Pop] at Dubai Mall and Mall of the Emirates and the event has been cancelled,” a statement said. Authorities in New Delhi and Mumbai closed Swatch Store openings citing a lack of crowd control threatening safety. “We are not animals,” crowd members were caught shouting on Instagram clips. 接着是迪拜。一份声明称：“出于安全考虑，我们决定不在迪拜购物中心（Dubai Mall）和阿联酋购物中心（Mall of the Emirates）进行 [Swatch x Audemars Piguet Royal Pop] 的销售，活动已取消。”新德里和孟买的当局也关闭了 Swatch 门店，理由是缺乏人群管控威胁到了安全。在 Instagram 的视频片段中，可以听到排队的人群高喊：“我们不是动物。”
London stores shut, and police dogs were deployed. Elsewhere in the UK, in Birmingham, news reports spoke of “fights and knives” and drug-taking before police were called. A “mosh pit” developed outside stores in the Netherlands. Clashes in Dusseldorf. Officers fired teargas to control a 300-strong crowd outside a Swatch shop in Paris. Open brawling occurred in Milan. Then arrests and shutdown in Miami. Houston’s store closed, as well as Chicago’s. In Long Island, New York, amazingly, pepper spray was used for crowd control. In store-front interviews, customers made clear their anger towards Swatch on how poorly the release was handled. 伦敦门店关闭，警方部署了警犬。在英国其他地区，如伯明翰，新闻报道称在警方介入前出现了“斗殴、持刀”和吸毒现象。荷兰的门店外形成了“冲撞坑”（mosh pit）。杜塞尔多夫发生了冲突。巴黎一家 Swatch 门店外，警察发射催泪瓦斯以控制 300 多人的拥挤人群。米兰发生了公开斗殴。随后，迈阿密出现了逮捕和关店事件。休斯顿和芝加哥的门店也相继关闭。令人震惊的是，在纽约长岛，警方甚至使用了胡椒喷雾来控制人群。在店门前的采访中，顾客明确表达了对 Swatch 处理此次发售方式不当的愤怒。
Eventually, around 2 pm ET, a staggering 17 hours after the first clear warning signs in Singapore, Swatch finally issued a statement on its Instagram page: “To all our dear fans worldwide of our AP x Swatch collab, launched on May 16. To ensure the safety of both our customers and our staff in Swatch stores, we kindly ask you not to rush to our stores in large numbers to acquire this product. The Royal Pop Collection will remain available for several months. In some countries, queues of more than 50 people cannot be accepted, and sales may need to be paused.” 最终，在美东时间下午 2 点左右，即新加坡出现首个明确预警信号 17 小时后，Swatch 终于在其 Instagram 页面上发表声明：“致我们全球所有喜爱 5 月 16 日发布的 AP x Swatch 联名款的粉丝们。为了确保 Swatch 门店顾客和员工的安全，我们恳请大家不要大量涌入我们的门店抢购该产品。Royal Pop 系列将在未来几个月内持续供应。在一些国家，无法接受超过 50 人的排队，销售可能需要暂停。”
Looking at almost any of the 45,000 comments on the post, the response to the brand from fans is crystal clear: Swatch had done far too little, far too late. “You intentionally put people in danger causing a frenzy knowing how many watches you sent to each location but allowing thousands of people to line up was negligent.” “Shame on you Swatch.” “Swatch did bad—they should have gotten ahead of this knowing the depth of inventory and allocation rather than putting stores and customers at risk”, and on the replies go. 查看该帖下 45,000 条评论中的任何一条，粉丝对该品牌的反应都非常明确：Swatch 做得太少，也太晚了。“你们明知每个地点的配货量，却故意让数千人排队引发骚乱，将人们置于危险之中，这是玩忽职守。”“Swatch，真为你感到羞耻。”“Swatch 做得太差了——他们应该在了解库存和分配深度的情况下提前做好预案，而不是让门店和顾客陷入风险。”类似的回复不胜枚举。
AP Wanted a Safe, Positive Experience
爱彼希望获得安全、积极的体验
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. 《连线》联系了 Swatch，询问鉴于 MoonSwatch 发售时反响不佳的诸多前车之鉴，为何在与爱彼的合作中重复了同样的发布策略。我们收到了其瑞士公关团队的回应，他们将责任归咎于购物中心的安保，尽管 Swatch 在购物中心之外的独立门店也发生了类似事件。
“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. 声明称：“Royal Pop 系列在全球范围内反响热烈，需求极高。在全球推出 Royal Pop 的 220 家 Swatch 门店中，约有 20 家在发售当天遇到了挑战，因为感兴趣的顾客排队人数异常多，而一些购物中心的组织能力不足以应对这种规模的人流。”
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.” 在声明中，Swatch 甚至承认周末发生的情况“与 2022 年 3 月 MoonSwatch 发售的第一天类似”，并表示“发售日过后，情况现已有所好转”。
The note from the communications team then, quite remarkably, lists some stats in an attempt to paint the launch in a positive light, as opposed the retail bin-fire it seemingly was: “We have received millions of clicks on our website. This new collaboration is literally making social media explode, with over 6 billion views within one week; by now, it is already 11 billion. All in all, the Royal Pop Collection is captivating the entire world, not least because the Royal Pop is, quite surprisingly, not a wristwatch.” 随后，公关团队的一份说明非常引人注目地列出了一些数据，试图将此次发售描绘成一次积极的活动，而不是一场零售灾难：“我们的网站获得了数百万次点击。这次新的合作确实引爆了社交媒体，一周内浏览量超过 60 亿次；截至目前，已达到 110 亿次。总而言之，Royal Pop 系列正在吸引全世界的目光，尤其是因为令人惊讶的是，Royal Pop 并不是一款腕表。”
Audemars Piguet seems unhappy with how Swatch has handled the launch of its collaboration on the Royal Pop. 爱彼似乎对 Swatch 处理此次 Royal Pop 联名发售的方式感到不满。