Love it or hate it, the Royal Pop is the most controversial, polarizing watch launch of the decade, maybe ever. It’s a publicity stunt, of course, and in that sense it’s a success, having garnered all the worldwide attention its creators, Audemars Piguet and Swatch, could have hoped for. But is it true that there is no such thing as bad publicity? And did the Royal Pop alienate (or at least frighten) it’s prime audience, which I assume is young women? 

I don’t hate the watch. It’s a charming mashup of the two brands, with AP represented by the tapisserie textured dial and famous octagonal bezel with eight screws of the Gerald Genta-designed Royal Oak. I love how it’s been Swatchified, with bright colors, a case made of bioceramic and an affordable (if disposable) movement. 

There are eight models, a nod to the eight-sided Royal Oak bezel, in different pop colors. Six are two-hand lepine-style pocket watches, with the winding crown positioned at 12 o’clock, and two are savonnette-style pocket watches with the winding crown at 3 o’clock and a small seconds subdial at 6.

Making it a pocket watch is a nod to AP’s heritage as a maker of traditional pocket watches, but with Swatch touches, including the groovy colors and the calfskin lanyard (instead of a gold chain). It seems designed to dangle from a handbag, like a Labubu, rather than from the vest pocket of a bespoke suit, like its upscale counterparts. I’ve also seen jokes on Instagram where guys are dangling it from a baseball hat or eyeglasses. One post showed it removed from the lanyard and taped to a man’s wrist. 

As much as I like the Royal Pop, I can’t see attaching it to one of my handbags. Maybe I would hang it from the rear view mirror in my car? Or I could dangle it from my dog’s collar. His friends might have a go at it, though, during play dates, and I wonder what the shock rating is? Either way, for $400, it’s fun and as accessible as any Swatch, which is the idea. Good idea so far.

The explosion of criticism about the Royal Pop was less about the product itself than about the circumstances surrounding its sale and distribution. It was sold in Swatch boutiques, beginning on an official launch day, May 16, on a first-come-first-served basis, just like the Omega MoonSwatch and the Blancpain/Swatch Bioceramic Scuba Fifty Fathoms.

Predictably, the entire process was taken over by the flippers. In most of the media reports I read, people in line unabashedly admitted to being flippers, and at last check, resale prices were clocking in at $4,000. That is why people lined up for hours, even days, camping out on sidewalks in the rain, waiting to buy one. Combine hype and greed with hundreds of people waiting in line and reports of as few as 10 sets  per outlet, and naturally the result was chaos. 

According to the many reports, particularly from WatchPro, which covered the launch closely, police had to break up fights outside a Swatch store in Milan– the footage I saw on Instagram was frightening. In Paris, tear gas was fired. In Birmingham, a dispersal order was issued, but people wouldn’t leave, even after the store was closed. Instead, they became an angry mob. In London, police dogs were deployed. In India, one customer was quoted crying “We are not animals,” as they were being crushed by the crowds. 

A May 16 report in WatchPro said, “Before daylight had reached the United States, reports were rolling in from Singapore, Dubai, Barcelona and London that the unveiling had become a risk to everybody’s safety, not least terrified teams in Swatch’s own stores.”

In Manhattan, scenes of police aiming pepper spray into the crowds surfaced on Instagram; a few days later someone posted a pic of a baseball cap saying: “I got pepper sprayed for a Royal Pop.” Later that day, Swatch USA announced several stores would not open in light of safety concerns. Good call, but will it happen again? Swatch also reminded people that the watch wasn’t limited (not numbered, at least) and invited them to come back for another try at a later date.

Even the solutions to the violence added to the unsafe conditions, which were anything but conducive to a luxury shopping experience. As Eugene Tutunikov, CEO of Swiss Watch Expo commented: “Nothing says luxury like tear gas and police dogs.” Compare the scene to AP’s normally very tightly controlled customer experience strategy. It sells not through authorized retailers, but at AP-owned boutiques with heavy security, or at luxurious, well-appointed AP houses, or through Nomads, who visit clients in private meetings by appointment only. 

It isn’t the flipping that bothers me about the Royal Pop launch. Why shouldn’t someone besides a watch company make money on a watch? Auction houses and collectors have been doing it for ages, and while makers like to say they are serving serious purist collectors, rather than flippers, we all know that a customer can be both of those things. But was there a better way to manage it? A lottery, perhaps, like the way MB&F sells its accessible M.A.D. watches?

What does bother me is that people got hurt, and queues for the watch were not a safe space for women. The violence was terrifying, and many believe highly preventable, and about as far from the luxury shopping experience as you can get. If the idea was to attract a younger audience to the world of watches, this experience alone would be enough to turn them off forever. Especially young women, for whom this product seems to be intended. The lineups for the Royal Pop were akin to the back alley of a dive bar in a bad part of town. Or the middle of an ICE protest in Minneapolis. As a sensible woman, I wouldn’t put myself in either of those situations. I’m not sure I’d even feel safe wearing a Royal Pop, given the demand for it among thugs. And for the same reason, I wouldn’t put it on my dog’s collar. Unless I decided to get a bigger dog. 

Does it attract a younger audience to the Audemars Piguet brand? Maybe. But I tend to agree with one of my favorite watch commentator/journalists, Tim Mosso, of 1916 company, who says wanting something expensive does not make you yearn for a cheap substitute for the real thing. “Is a Nissan Versa going to inspire a desire for a Porsche that a kid’s been already dreaming about since he was 10 years old? No. I would argue almost universally the answer is no.”