Why watch companies go all in on brand storytelling

Watch collectors adore excessive and needless functionality.

Post summary:

• Omega have leveraged their USP of having a watch certified for space travel to great effect, making use of this in their messaging for over 65 years.
• Having a great product is one thing, but if your product tells a great story, it becomes more desirable, which can drive demand from customers.
• Collaboration can be the key to success: joining your brand with other popular entities can help create the next craze. 
• Brand tie-ins don’t always have to be obvious; sometimes the novelty of opposing brands (e.g. Domino’s and Rolex) can generate interest on its own. 

Want to dive 3000ft below sea level? There’s a watch for that. Want to keep track of two time zones at once? There’s a watch for that. Want to know what the current moon phase is? There are actually plenty of watches that will let you do that. 

But your average collector never ventures deeper than the shallow end of the local leisure centre pool. They, like all other mortals, can only exist in one time zone at a time. And if they want to know what the moon is doing, they need only look up at night. 

These are all incredibly popular features, often aimed squarely at collectors looking for bragging rights over other horologists. But what if you wanted to take a day trip to the cold, dead vacuum of space? It turns out there’s a watch for that, too.

Moonlighting

Years before Omega became synonymous with the world’s most famous spy, it became associated with something arguably far cooler: if you had an Omega Speedmaster, you had the only watch officially cleared by NASA for use in space. 

We’ve talked before about how space exploration captures the public’s imagination, and how merchandise has been used to great effect to enhance the impact of this. With the Omega Speedmaster, it’s a perfect exercise in the importance of storytelling for a brand. 

The watch entered production in 1957, and soon it proved itself as a favourite among pilots, racing drivers, and people who spent significant portions of their day doing the kind of important maths that required a tachymeter. 

But proving itself on land was one thing; NASA needed to be sure they had a watch that could survive the harsh pressure, rattles, and vibrations of a rocket, all while keeping time as accurately as possible.

This was particularly important in the 1960s, when calculators were still the thing of science fiction, but precise calculations were needed to work out how much fuel and oxygen the crew had at their disposal. Cheapening out here would mean the difference between a hero’s return and getting stuck in the cold, dead vacuum of space. 

The Speedmaster had been the go-to watch for astronauts since 1962 as part of the Mercury space missions, but it was the Apollo 11 mission that earned it the nickname “Moonwatch.”

In 1969, the world watched with baited breath as the lunar pod touched down on the moon’s surface, in crunchy black and white footage beamed directly to TV screens the size of a hotel bible. History had been made that day, thanks at least in part to the Omega Speedmaster. 

People wanted a piece of the excitement, but there was a problem: lunar rovers weren’t available from car dealerships, and Jeff Bezos was just five years old, so he couldn’t get you into space, no matter how deep your pockets were. 

But for a mere $185 (prices have sadly gone up a bit in the last 50 years!), you could wear the hero watch used by astronauts. 

The lasting legacy of “The Moonwatch”

Sixty years later, and you’ll find the date of the Apollo 11 landing engraved on the case back of most Speedmasters made today, and it’s nigh on impossible to read anything about the model without getting the full ‘moonwatch’ backstory that goes into it (including this, sorry not sorry). Why? Because it’s an incredibly compelling story, and it’s a brag that very few other watchmakers can match.

If Neil Armstrong had taken a tub of Lurpak to the moon, you can bet good money that they would still lean heavily on that in their advertising and messaging to this day. They wouldn’t even have to say, “Suck it, Clover”, because at that point, it’s essentially a given. 

The point is, even if your product is good enough to go to the moon, it'll get much more attention if it actually does it. ‘Going to the moon’ will mean something completely different for each brand, but being bold and being the first is what keeps you in people’s minds, and the competitors on their toes.

So what about all the watch brands that didn’t have the first watch in space? Well, they didn’t exactly fall by the wayside either, because there were plenty more stories to tell. 

Snoopy watches

For over seventy years, Snoopy has rightfully enjoyed his place as a cultural phenomenon, figurehead for pure Americana, and an unrealistic benchmark for dogs around the world. Can your dog play piano, dance, and fly a biplane? Of course not. It doesn’t matter how much you love your dog; Snoopy is just objectively more skilled. 

Because of this, buying a beagle might not fill the void (sidenote: are we sure Snoopy is meant to be a beagle? They’re usually at least 50% brown, whereas Snoopy is entirely black and white), but watches featuring the eponymous pooch have enjoyed a cult status all of their own.

For almost as long as the comics have been around, watch companies have been creating designs with Snoopy featured proudly on the dial. Timex were among the first companies, and are still one of the most closely associated to have done a tie-in, but there are plenty of other notable companies that have been involved over the years, including Swatch and, coincidentally, Omega. 

Just to bring it full circle, a number of Snoopy-branded Speedmasters have been created over the years because apparently there’s a whole other Snoopy/Apollo 11/Speedmaster story for those who like their provenance to be extra obscure-flavoured.

What started as a quick tie-in has become a mainstay of watch brands’ lineups for seventy years, with little sign of them slowing down any time soon. 

Domino’s Rolex

As brand tie-ins go, “Domino’s Pizza Rolex” is about as unlikely a match as a “Rolls Royce Silver Shadow Mrs Brown’s Boys Edition”, but sure enough, this is a very real thing that exists. 

Usually, when we talk about effective use of product branding, we talk about the importance of finding a product that aligns with your brand’s ethos and values, but it’s the juxtaposition of the brands that has possibly added to the appeal of these watches.

These Domino’s Pizza-branded Rolexes were first given out to store managers for hitting lofty targets in the late ‘70s, but incredibly, the incentive is still active to this day.

Some feature the Domino’s emblem prominently on the watch dial itself (the red and blue offering a noticeably stark contrast to the off-white colour of the rest of the dial’s design), while more recent ones have a more subtle (arguably?) engraved Domino’s logo attached to the watch bracelet. 

It’s a rare change of pace for Rolex, who usually reserve tie-ins for premium brands (and occasionally members of Middle Eastern royalty). But not only are Rolex a part of the promotion, they carry out the customisations themselves in-house, so presumably they’ve got no qualms with the association. 

Seiko Pepsi

Collectors in all walks of life have a habit of giving things entirely unsanctioned, cute lil’ nicknames, and that’s certainly true in watch circles, too. Certain colour combos are commonly referred to by collectors as ‘Hulk’ (for green on green), ‘Batman’ (black on blue), and ‘Pepsi’ (for red on blue). 

These nicknames often transcend brands, but some are more closely associated with specific models. For example, the watches most commonly associated with Pepsi are Seiko’s dive watches, which gained popularity in the 1990s, much like the drink itself. 

Pepsi was the ‘in’ drink for the young generation. Coca-Cola was their dad’s drink, and Pepsi appealed to the youth audience through time-honoured tactics like showing people wearing sunglasses and carrying skateboards in their adverts.  

For years, the Pepsi moniker has stuck, and a mere 35 years later, the two companies have collaborated to pay tribute to this. 

For added retro cool factor, the special edition watches even come in a specially created watch box that mimics the shape and design of Pepsi’s drinks cans from the 90s.

The power of brand storytelling

The moral of the story? Sometimes, the only thing standing between your company and worldwide fame is the story it tells with its brand. Simple items have the power to start a new trend and get people excited, and you don’t necessarily need to spend a lot of money to make it happen.  

We pride ourselves on helping businesses by making sure they get the right tools to tell their brand story. Still need a little more inspiration? Get in touch and we’ll help you get everything you need. 

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