Enzwa

case studyfilm · von vogel

A watch in three parts, filmed as the case, dial and strap are swapped.

Von Vogel splits a watch into three parts, so the case, the dial and the strap mix and match and one purchase is several watches. On a shop floor it is one watch, in one configuration, under one light. We filmed the part the cabinet cannot hold.

A silver Von Vogel dial with a retrograde day arc, lit against black.

Studio, then worn: the first twelve seconds of the film

clientVon Vogel
made forRetail and distributor screens
delivered1 film, 47 seconds · 4 mode cuts
shotStudio and Hong Kong streets

Von Vogel build a watch out of three interchangeable parts: the case, the dial and the strap. The proposition is that it changes, and a customer buying one is really buying several. As the brand scaled into shops run by other people, that argument had to survive a glass cabinet, where the watch sits in exactly one configuration and does nothing. We filmed one watch through a day instead, so a screen at the point of purchase shows the range by use rather than listing it on a card.

The challenge

Von Vogel were scaling, and the watches were increasingly sold by other people: retailers and distributors, on their floors, in their cabinets.

A modular watch is a hard thing to sell that way. Everything interesting about it is the swap, and a cabinet cannot swap. The customer sees one case, one dial and one strap, and has to be told the rest. Told is the weak version: it turns a product into a paragraph on a shelf-talker, read by nobody.

What they needed was something that worked on a screen at the point of purchase, with no salesperson standing next to it.

How we approached it

The obvious film is a configurator: parts flying together, a grid of combinations, a spinning turntable. It shows the mechanism and sells nothing, because nobody buys a watch to admire its modularity.

What they buy is the range of days one watch will cover. So the film follows a single watch through a day rather than a catalogue through its options: a desk, a market street, a run, a drive, and back to the studio it opened in.

Cut to work with no sound and no captions, because a shop screen has neither speakers nor a beginning.

the productthree parts, one of them fixed

A watch that comes apart.

The case is bought once. The dial and the strap both change, and changing either one makes a different watch. It is a simple claim to write on a shelf-talker and a hard one to see in a cabinet, where the watch sits in one configuration under one light.

  1. The dialFour in the film: silver, blue, black and white. Changing it changes the watch more than anything else on it.
  2. The caseOne. Steel, fluted crown at three, curved lugs, and the movement inside it. This is the part that is bought once.
  3. The strapThree in the film: tan leather, black leather and sport rubber. Thirty seconds to change, with a spring-bar tool.

One watch, in one configuration. This is what the cabinet holds.

build onethe thing a cabinet cannot do

Pick a dial and a strap.

Every dial and every strap here appears in the film: 12 combinations out of the parts in forty-seven seconds. A screen can be handled this way. A glass cabinet cannot, which is why the film had to exist at all.

the dial
the strap

Silver dial on tan leather.

A dial being set onto a movement.
The dial goes on last, over a movement that is the same every time.
A strap being fitted between the lugs.
The strap is held by a spring bar. It is the fastest of the three to change.

The two assembly stills above were made for this page. The watch itself is shown in the film and the frames taken from it.

the filmthe delivered cut

Forty-seven seconds, one watch.

Studio at both ends, worn in the middle. Short enough to hold a passer-by, long enough to change setting four times.

A Von Vogel watch on a tan leather strap, standing on a black reflective surface.

Von Vogel · 0:47

the argumentone watch, four settings

The same watch, four times.

Watch the strap. It is brown leather at the desk and on the street, black and sporting on the run and at the wheel, and it is the same watch throughout. That swap is the entire proposition, and it is the one thing a cabinet cannot perform. Each loop is cut separately so a vendor can run the one that suits their floor rather than the whole film.

The watch at a desk on a brown leather strap, at the cuff of a hand resting on a laptop.
At a desk
The same watch on the street, brown leather, worn with denim and a work jacket.
On the street
The watch on a black sports strap, worn with sportswear, mid-stride.
Running
The watch on a black strap at a white shirt cuff, a hand on a steering wheel.
Driving

the cutone watch, five lives

Forty-seven seconds to prove a product claim.

The watch is modular. The only honest way to show that is to keep changing it and keep the wrist moving.

The watch shot on black, silver dial and chronograph subdials.

beat 01

The product, lit and still

One clean hero on black. Every configuration after this is read against it.

A man walking with a bag, the watch visible on his wrist.

beat 02

On a wrist, in the street

Out of the studio immediately. A modular watch is an argument about daily life, not about a lightbox.

A hand resting on a dark surface wearing the watch with a blue dial.

beat 03

A different face, at a desk

Blue dial, same case. The change is shown rather than captioned.

A person walking, wearing the watch with a black dial.

beat 04

Another, in motion

Black dial, walking. The film never stops to explain the system; it just keeps presenting it.

A wrist wearing the watch against a busy street background.

beat 05

The city as the set

Signage, traffic, the wrist in the foreground. Context does the work that a spec sheet would do badly.

Hands on scooter handlebars, wearing the watch with a white dial.

beat 06

Hands on the bars

White dial, gripping a scooter. Ends on use rather than on product, which is the whole claim.

the lawwhat this one proves

A product that changes has to be filmed being used.

Every configurable product has this problem: the feature is the change, and a photograph is a single state. A still of a modular watch is a still of one watch. Forty-seven seconds of it on four different days is the only version of the claim a customer can check without being talked to.

formatFilm and explainers
fromHKD 23,000
turnaroundagreed at brief
show prices in

Film and explainers

A product that has to sell itself on a shelf, unattended.

Turnaround is agreed with you before work starts.

Start a brief

Or write to hello@enzwa.com