Rado Livestreamed Press Conference for 2020: 5 Takeaways

Rado took to the Internet earlier today to announce its upcoming releases for 2020, and there’s plenty to be excited about. We anticipated a goodly number of Captain Cook releases and new True Thinline pieces, continuing from its 2019 successes. Here are some highlights and takeaways from the press conference.

CEO of Rado, Matthias Breschan, speaks at the brand's first digital press conference.
CEO of Rado, Matthias Breschan, speaks at the brand's first digital press conference.
Rado is embracing the future. The watch industry will follow.

A digital press conference isn’t anything new at all, and Rado isn’t the first watch brand to embrace livestreaming as a way to reach the global press conveniently across all continents. But livestreams have been more of an ad-hoc effort in the past, not as a way to announce a global direction for a brand. One can expect that as appetites for expensive trade fairs fade, brands will likely begin to embrace this as a convenient solution for regular updates.

With the entire world’s attention turned towards excessive travel and being conscientious of waste, this may well be the future for other brands to mimic. It’s certainly a smart move, and something that enables Rado to communicate with the public and press effectively.

The themes of nature, mindfulness and textures are recurring in Rado's campaign for 2020.
The themes of nature, mindfulness and textures are recurring in Rado's campaign for 2020.

It’s embracing the design industry and field.

Rado has engaged Lidewij Edelkoort’s Trend Union to develop its predictions for the industry for the last couple of years, and it’s proven to be a good partnership. She pointed out that Rado is the unconventional child of the luxury watch industry. “It’s a company that’s always thinking with a design mind. Design thinking is in the DNA of the brand.”

Highlighting that designers themselves love to work with Rado and to wear Rado, making it clear that we can expect more collaborations in the near future. Based on their press images, we can also expect a green True Thinline model appearing soon.

While there are no specs on this Rado Captain Cook watch as yet, it appears to be a bronze model with green ceramic bezel and dial, sized at 42mm
While there are no specs on this Rado Captain Cook watch as yet, it appears to be a bronze model with green ceramic bezel and dial, sized at 42mm
Color Rado happy. The year of 2020 is filled with color and mindfulness.

CEO Matthias Breschan took pains to emphasize the success of the new Captain Cook at 42mm and more notably, the Rado True Thinline Les Couleurs™ Le Corbusier collection and how it resonated well with its audience.

“Because green is the hot color now, the bestseller definitely was the green version of the Captain Cook with the green ceramic bezel and green dial,” he expressed. “So to combine our biggest product success of 2019 together with a new campaign that focuses on the very trendy green color is definitely the highlight that we are going to start in 2020.”

We spy a bronze Captain Cook with green bezel and dial, something that’s definitely tickling our interest. We also see more textured dials in the works.

The Rado Golden Horse in green dial. The campaign for this year is wholly lifestyle and embracing of nature. Spot on.
The Rado Golden Horse in green dial. The campaign for this year is wholly lifestyle and embracing of nature. Spot on.
Nature and the environment. The watch industry is embracing the natural world.

Edelkoort highlighted a second aspect of Rado’s campaign for this year, which is mindfulness. “Mindfulness of time, of doing the right thing, not doing too many things…” So we’re expecting that there will be a greater streamlining of products in the year to come and a focus on the lines mentioned previously.

Beyond that, the visual imagery of each and every timepiece shown is a surrounding of a natural landscape, demonstrating the brand’s embracing the natural world’s beauty. We expect there will be other color drops later in the year, aligned with colors of the natural world.

it’s aiming for a new generation of consumers.

This should of course come as no surprise, but Rado is actively pursuing a younger audience in 2020, with a campaign developed by Alex Johns, the creative director of DesignStudio, the company the developed Rado’s new “Feel It” campaign for 2020. The energetic campaign features youngsters experiencing nature and life “in the real”, so to speak.

As he explains it, “the heart of our vision is taking the Rado spirit and connecting it to the mindset of a new, younger and international audience. It’s an audience for whom luxury means something completely different. A generation that desires self-expression to forge their own unique path in the world.”

The “Feel It” campaign revolves around the idea that when you pick up a Rado watch you do feel the difference. There’s a clear focus on visceral textures both on the dial or in the materials used. There’s a further added point, that the materials Rado uses has a real benefit to the consumer. The larger sized Golden Horse in green dial is another key piece for the year, as well as a celebration of gender-neutral timepieces, that suit everyone.

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