I’m not talking about that people don’t like it, because they do. But looking in sales, I would expect a brand like zenith to at least be in top 20, but they’re far off. Why is that? I see them as an Omega-like brand, not a small brand.
Marketing & Distribution.
Zenith has a big Chinese audience, so that is where they spend a lot of their marketing efforts and also in various places in Europe.
They aren’t particularly interested in the US so they don’t put effort there. You have to remember it’s part of the LVHM stable of brands so think about it from that level - you pitch different brands to different markets.
There’s two reasons I can think of
First of all they used to be as you say a Omega like brand but contrary to popular belief the integration of Omega into Swatch group only improved this brand and Zenith…stuck as sort of the underdog of the two mostly because they tend to make tremendously thick cases that are more shaped like a cylinder than like a small disk. Omega albeit thicker, is less so.
The other reason is because in the 90s there used to be a brand making pressed can pipes called Zenith which was known for bad quality and I kid you not they copied the logo from the watch company and now some people associate both.
Personally I don’t like the design, I see them as a weird mix between bland and too busy.