OPINION: Want to succeed in the luxury market? Try staying silent

In a world where everything is shared, all the time, and we’re bombarded with advertising on all sides (it’s estimated that 90% of everything on the internet is commercial content in disguise, reported Vulture in a recent piece), it’s no surprise that the future of luxury marketing might be to say nothing at all. 

It’s a strategy that’s already working for fashion and jewellery brands like The Row, Lemaire, and Bottega Veneta, as well as other low-key luxury names like car marque Pagani and hotel chain Aman Resorts. Their social media activity is scaled-back, if it exists at all, and over time they’ve cemented their reputations and desirability on scarcity, quality, and exclusivity. 

These are brands coveted by ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWs) for their lack of advertising and rejection of logo-mania. Inevitably, of course, this also means their designs and aesthetics are copied, relentlessly, by others, and they set the trends that many follow. 

Whether intentionally or not, it’s a marketing strategy that’s already been adopted by several successful watch brands, all at the higher end of the market. Names like A. Lange & Söhne, F.P.Journe, Philippe Dufour, Greubel Forsey, Voutilainen, and Laurent Ferrier are known for their minimal-if-anything social media presence, and all eschew playing the celebrity advertising game. Instead, through quiet marketing strategies, they’ve built small yet solid bases of fans willing to pay upwards of six-figures (on both the first and secondary markets) for their latest limited edition timepieces. 

Of course, staying silent doesn’t work for every brand. The cat’s out of the bag for big names like Rolex and Cartier — they’re already household names, and the big splashy advertising strategy seems to be working just fine for them. 

But it’s increasingly not necessary for independent, low-production, ultra-luxury watchmakers to try and match them in terms of visibility. In fact, you don’t need or even want that kind of exposure when your clients will always be a small niche of high spenders, who want to wear the brand that isn’t being punted all over town. 

And, as a watchmaker, this is the category you most want to be in right now, with watches priced above CHF 50,000 representing 37% of export value and delivering 89% of growth in 2025, according to Deloitte’s most recent Watch Index. 

At a time when mass marketing feels increasingly overwhelming and more people are logging off from social media altogether (use has been falling since its peak in 2022), it looks like true luxury brands (not ‘masstige’ names, but ones with products that at least try to justify their pricepoints) are just going to get quieter and quieter.