Update on the Apple Watch – $17,000 makes sense (kind of).

In early January I wrote a detailed piece on how Apple was transitioning itself from a consumer goods company to a luxury goods company.

Yesterday Apple announced the full range of Apple Watch models, with pricing and availability dates. The biggest shock to most was the Apple Watch Edition pricing. The solid gold model will retail for between $10,000 and $17,000 USD, depending on the band you match it with.

The twittersphere went into meltdown, and Mashable immediately posted a list of 11 things you could buy for $10,000 other than the Apple Watch Edition.

But as I pointed out on LinkedIn, this pricing shouldn’t have come as a shock. Apple is making the move to becoming a luxury brand. No, iPhone’s have never been inexpensive, but they’ve been consumer goods – not luxury items. There’s never been a $5,000 iPhone, or a specialist section of Apple’s retail stores set aside to hand sell them.

Apple have flagged their intentions to become the next big player in luxury, and Chanel, Burberry and Gucci had better be watching carefully.

Apple re-inventing itself as a luxury brand

There’s been a lot written about Apple Watch. There have been those hailing it as a game changer, those who have declared it DOA (even before it’s arrived), and those who’ve taken a more balanced view.

Generally the discussion has been around design or technology, comparing it to other wearables and regularly if people are ready to embrace a smart watch.

That’s all well and good, but it misses what I believe is the biggest thing about the Apple Watch.

Burberry and the ‘Bozo Filter’.

Global luxury brand, Burberry, are under siege currently.

A quick scan of their Facebook updates shows that their recent updates are overrun with comments from anti-fur campaigners. The “Save Kimi” campaign aims to raise awareness around the use of animal sourced fur used in Burberry’s line of products.

While reports have stated that a petition has received more than 125,000 signatories already, it’s the social media activity of the campaigners and their followers that is causing Burberry massive disruption.

Burberry are regarded by many in the digital realm as the ‘Gold Standard’ of how luxury brands should act online. Their transformation from me-too to global icon is in no small part due to the work of Angela Ahrendts and her focus on digital as a means to create that transformation.

Burberry changed the game for luxury fashion brands, who previously had seen digital as too childish and mass market for their marketing aims.  Burberry brought bloggers to runway shows and live-streamed those same fashion launches at a time when its competitor brands held the leash tightly. While Burberry aimed to reveal its collections live over an iPhone app, the rest of the market was trying to make sure the front row was filled with Fashion magazine editors, and embargoed the show details to build a sense of exclusivity.

Burberry’s gamble paid off. Now everyone with an iPhone or a PC was in the front row. And instead of relying only on Anna Wintour to create hype, Burberry was able to call on millions of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram fans to repeat the message and create the hype for them.

But to quote Peter Parker’s uncle – with great power comes great responsibility.