The new watches indicated something else as well: the dawn of mass tech-based consumerism. Split-second timing, once the exclusive domain of physicists and technicians, was now available to all, and there was no better symbol of the seismic shift from the mechanical to the electronic world.
How did the Swiss react to this disruption? They oscillated between denial and panic. Between 1970 and 1983, the Swiss share of the watch market fell from 50 per cent to 15, and the industry shed more than half its workforce. The warnings were there as early as 1973: in that year, Timex sold about 30 million watches around the world, a huge increase from 8 million in 1960, and almost half of what Switzerland was capable of. These watches were unjewelled mechanical pieces, a bit clunky and rattly, and they could easily lose or gain a couple of minutes each day. But they only cost about $10, and owners regarded them as disposable. With quartz in the mid-1970s it would overtake the Swiss competition with ease.6
But in the early 1980s, with doom on the horizon, the Swiss fought back with a new philosophy of their own, and something plastic, cheaper and powered by quartz and battery: the Swatch. The Swatch – from its name onwards – injected colour, emotion, youth and fun back into Swiss watches (God knows, the fusty industry needed it), and a series of assured marketing campaigns made every teenager drool. The Pop Swatch made watch collecting feasible for the young. The success of the Swatch made it look as though the Swiss were never in trouble at all. There is a brilliantly seamless (if not entirely accurate) riff about electronic watches in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing (1982), which is a play about loyalty and dedication to a cause. In the first scene, a play within a play, the character Max, an architect slightly worse for drink, suspects that his wife has not, as she has claimed, been on a trip to Switzerland. He ponders the correct pronunciation of Basel, and claims,
You know the Swiss – utterly reliable. And they’ve done it without going digital, that’s what I admire so much. They know it’s all a snare and delusion. I can remember digitals when they first came out. You had to give your wrist a vigorous shake, like bringing down a thermometer. And the only place you could buy one was Tokyo. But it looked all over for the fifteen-jewel movement. Men ran through the marketplace shouting ‘the cog is dead!’ But still the Swiss didn’t panic. In fact, they made a few digitals themselves, as a feint to draw the Japanese further into the mire, and got on with numbering the bank accounts.
Stoppard maintained that the days of the digital were numbered, the metaphor ‘built into them like a self-destruct mechanism’. But these days Swatch is based solidly on quartz and is the most influential player in the industry. In 2014 its gross sales amounted to more than nine billion Swiss francs, and the Swatch Group is the world’s largest watchmaking company, consisting of brands that once would have shuddered at the thought: Longines, Blancpain, Rado, Harry Winston and Breguet – the company which claims to have made the first wristwatch in 1810.7
iv) In Which We Name the Guilty Man
In May 1996, the London-based advertising agency Leagas Delaney announced that it had won another huge global account. The company already had contracts for Harrods and Porsche, and now it was to add the high-end watchmakers Patek Philippe to its roster, in a deal valued, according to Campaign, at £10 million. The competition had been stiff, including pitches from Bartle Bogle Hegarty and Saatchi, and when the account was awarded, a high-up at Leagas Delaney said, ‘This is a pitch which excited the whole agency. We are thrilled to get the business.’
The press release announcing the news stated that Patek Philippe took such immense care over its timepieces that it had sold fewer watches in its 150-year history than Rolex produced in a year. It wasn’t clear whether this was a good or a bad thing, or whether Patek’s eagerly awaited new advertising campaign would begin to narrow the gap. One of the earliest new advertisements featured a photograph of a man seated at a piano, and on his lap was a child in pyjamas. You couldn’t see the face of either man or child, and you couldn’t see a wrist either, so there was no watch. The only watch on display lay at the foot of a lot of text in the bottom half of the ad. ‘Begin your own tradition’ the copy began.
Whatever innovations Patek Philippe introduce, every watch is still crafted by hand. The men’s Annual Calendar ref. 5035 is the first self-winding calendar watch in the world to require resetting only once a year. And because of the exceptional workmanship, each one is a unique object. Which is perhaps why some people feel that you never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation.
When the last two lines of the new advert were edited to appear on their own, something new was born: ‘You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation’ just stuck, to the extent that it has become one of the most famous in advertising and has appeared unchanged for almost 20 years (and counting). It translates too, although perhaps not quite so elegantly: ‘Jamais vous ne posséderez complètement une Patek Philippe. Vous en serez juste le gardien, pour les générations futures.’
In 2011, when Creative Review magazine asked industry experts to name the most enduring or cleverest slogans, the choice was impressive and wide, ranging from ‘I Heart NY’, ‘Refreshes the parts others beers cannot reach’ and ‘Beanz Meanz Heinz’ to ‘Careless talk costs lives’, ‘Keep calm and carry on’ and ‘Does exactly what it says on the tin’. Gordon Comstock, a columnist at Creative Review and a freelance copywriter, chose John Lewis’s ‘Never knowingly undersold’, the Independent’s ‘It is. Are you?’ and Nike’s ‘Just do it’. But top of his list was ‘You never actually own . . .’. Explaining his choice, Comstock wrote that ‘The brand runs this line with different photography every year and pays [Leagas Delaney] a million quid. It’s probably worth it too . . . It’s a confident writer that will leave two adverbs in a headline.’
The confident writer is a man called Tim Delaney, one of the greatest names in British advertising; many would place him in the top ten of the greatest copywriters in the world. Delaney entered the industry as a messenger boy at 15 and has been at the helm of his own company since 1980, running ads of substance for Sony, Philips, Timberland, Glenfiddich, Ordnance Survey maps, Barclays, the Guardian, Bollinger, Hyundai, the BBC, the TUC, Adidas and the Labour Party. When he was inducted into The One Club in 2007 (a lifetime-achievement award presented in New York), one of the tributes, from a former colleague of Delaney’s named Martin Galton, said, ‘In a time when it’s unfashionable to take risks, when we are swimming around in a sea of beige, the world needs Tim Delaney more than ever.’ One advertisement his company made for Timberland included a photo of a Native American in full regalia and the copy line: ‘We stole their land, their buffalo and their women. Then we went back for their shoes.’ Leagas Delaney wrote the line ‘There is only one Harrods. There is only one sale.’ And, in an advert promoting the Nationwide Building Society in the 1980s: ‘If you want to find out how banks became the richest, most powerful institutions in the world, go into the red one day.’8
The ‘Generations’ campaign, as the Patek Philippe ads became known, featured photographs taken by Herb Ritts, Ellen von Unwerth, Mary Ellen Mark and Peggy Sirota, and showcased such simulated moments as a father and son on a glamorous fishing trip, a father and son on a journey on the Orient Express, and a father showing a son how to tie a tie. There was also a mother laughing with her daughter over life’s little luxuries at home. Most of these adverts made me feel queasy, and I sent Delaney an email to tell him so.
I told him I was interested in how one sells a watch to those who don’t really need one, and that I admired his Patek campaigns. I also told him that I was upset by those perfect families and their smugness, and that ‘I’d like to give the adults a good slap. The deeper problem is, the adverts have made me fairly keen to buy one of those beautiful watches.’
I told him I was interested in talking about the conception of the campaign and its intentions. ‘Why are they so effective? And will they
just continue until the kids in the photos become adults themselves, and then hand watches down to their children? We may reach the end of the world, but those families will still be looking after watches and passing them down – it’s mind-blowing, it’s like a Charlie Kaufman film.’
Delaney was happy to chat. He explained that the majority of the other famous watch brands had passed from family ownership to the conglomerates, and that it was always his intention to emphasise the fact that Patek was still owned by the same family. ‘We had an emotional insight,’ he says. The ads are successful ‘because of continuity – in the company itself, the family ownership, the design ethos – the watches come from somewhere, they don’t just turn up’.
In common with most agencies embarking on work for a new client, Leagas Delaney spent some time looking at previous campaigns to discover what they believed did and didn’t work. The campaign featuring famous past owners – Queen Victoria, Einstein – produced some particularly useful research: ‘Naturally if you showed that to Americans the first thing they’d say is “Yeah, but what about me?” So that gave rise to “Begin your own tradition”, and that in turn gave rise to the line that we have now.’
Delaney conceived the ‘Begin your own tradition’ idea on a plane. He says he took the ‘You never actually own . . .’ line and made it into the headline, but says he can’t remember who in his agency wrote it originally. ‘A number of people claim it,’ he says, ‘but success has many fathers.’
Viewed as a whole, on the back page of Esquire, GQ or the Economist, the advert tugs at the reader’s sense of responsibility and family obligation, not least the creation of dynasty and heritage. It is as aspirational as most other luxury adverts, in this case appealing to someone with new money aspiring to be someone with old money. And of course it relies on the warped concept that to fulfil one’s obligation of not owning a Patek watch one must first buy a Patek watch. New Patek watches cost from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands, edging towards millions for classic models at auction. Delaney himself wears an Aquanaut, a watch at the modest end of the scale.
I asked him why his campaign had lasted so long. ‘I think it’s a universal insight, and I think people respond to it,’ he says. ‘It’s not pushy – the thought doesn’t run down, it doesn’t become less intelligent the more you see it . . . But it doesn’t happen through fantastic genius; it happens through a combination of factors and happenstance and it slots into place.’
There have been subtle changes over the years in photography and typography. ‘You change with the demands of the culture and the demands of the economy. You’re subtly monitoring behaviour of people who can afford watches.’ The photos are an attempt ‘to show humanity and warmth. Truth . . . It’s idealized. Everyone knows it’s advertising. You have a strong sense that it’s a natural bond between the two people, the father and the son, mother and daughter, so it’s palatable, but it’s not a photograph of a guy with his real son. It’s only a matter of us trying to restrain everything so that it doesn’t become saccharine and that it stays palatable within the framework of advertising.’
I asked him whether there were any other watch campaigns he admired, and he thought for less than a second. ‘No.’
v) The Most Valuable Watch on the Planet
But here’s one he may envy a little. If, as a marketing manager of a famous watch company, you did somehow manage to get the first man on the moon to wear your watch as he set foot on the lunar surface for the very first time, then surely you would have something to brag about and promote for evermore. So imagine the delight at Omega when NASA selected the brand as its official Apollo timekeeper, and the unfettered joy when it was clear that Neil Armstrong – and could there ever be a more perfect name for a watch ambassador? – agreed that he would be wearing an Omega Speedmaster Professional Chronograph as he stepped down from the lunar module onto the Sea of Tranquillity.
Didn’t happen. Armstrong went all the way there – all the way to the damn moon – with the intention of wearing his Omega as he took his one small step onto the moon’s surface, but then when the Eagle landed he deliberately left his watch behind because the timer in the module was malfunctioning. So step forward Buzz Aldrin. ‘Few things are less necessary when walking around on the moon than knowing what time it is in Houston, Texas,’ the second man on the moon wrote in his memoir Return To Earth in 1973. ‘Nonetheless, being a watch guy, I decided to strap the Speedmaster onto my right wrist around the outside of my bulky spacesuit.’
The Omega advertising team sprang into action immediately. ‘Saying that an Omega is the most trustworthy watch on Earth is something of an understatement’, one advert ran, and the crowing never abated. ‘How can a man in a $27,000 suit settle for a $235 watch?’ ran another. An advertisement promoting the Speedmaster Mark II had the line, ‘And its daddy went to the moon’. Heralding the unlikely American–Soviet/Apollo–Soyuz space mission of 1975, Omega claimed that ‘for any other watch the shock would be too much’.
Omega went on all the missions. When, as commander of Apollo 17, Gene Cernan left the last footprint on the moon on 14 December 1972, he had a Speedmaster strapped to each arm of his spacesuit; one told Houston time, the other the time in Czechoslovakia, the birthplace of his mother. ‘The Speedmaster is the only thing we took to the Moon that had no modification whatsoever,’ the astronaut said, as if reading from a script prepared by the Omega marketing department. ‘It was right off the shelf.’9
Today, the so-called ‘Moonwatch’ is still a hugely attractive USP. The company offers several editions of the Speedmaster, with its ambassador George Clooney happy to wear the updated 2015 model with recessed hour markers and newly designed ‘broad arrow’ hands as he messes around on his motorbike (Clooney says that his father and uncle also wore Omegas). But you can also get editions called Dark Side of the Moon (zirconium oxide ceramic dial), Grey Side of the Moon (with the metallic-looking dial inspired by moon dust and mint-green luminosity on the bevel) and the ghostly White Side of the Moon that looks like it’s been dropped in a tin of Dulux Vinyl Matt but was actually inspired by ‘the radiance of the celestial body as seen from Earth’. Uh-huh. Omega is now part of the Swatch Group.10
Which brings us to the most valuable watch on the planet. This would be Buzz’s Aldrin’s own 42mm Calibre 321 hand-wound Speedmaster Chronograph that he wore with an especially long strap when he went walkabout. How much would such an item be worth? No one knows, and no one knows where it is, either. His watch went walkabout all on its own: all the Apollo astronauts were asked to hand their watches back after their return to Earth, and they remained the property of NASA in Houston (and some ended up at the Smithsonian in Washington DC). But Buzz’s watch went missing not long after he returned it, and it has never been found. So if you want to look under your bed, the reference number on the inside of the back case is ST105.012.
_______________
1 The Cobra, released in July 2015 and limited to 88 watches, is 57mm in width, which is enormous, and reflects the trend for increasingly muscled-up medallions. Its maker Franc Vila is Spanish and self-taught, and, according to Ophélie, ‘leaves nothing to chance’.
2 The plane spent far more time in transit in crates on trucks and ships than it ever did in the air, a battle for its display comparable to that being waged over the Elgin Marbles. It spent the first 13 years after its flight crated up in a shed in Dayton, Ohio, then went to a brief airing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1916, then went on holiday for a few weeks in 1917–19 to various expositions and engineering shows, and all the while it was the subject of dispute between Orville Wright and the Smithsonian about whether the plane was actually the first to fly.
3 The New York Times magazine, 9 July 1995.
4 The record for the number of complications is indeed 57. The record was broken in September 2015 with the unveiling of a new timepiece from Vacheron Constantin, the Tivoli. This is a pocket watch, Victorian style, and is able t
o simulate the chiming sequence of Big Ben, a Hebrew perpetual calendar with a special notification for Yom Kippur, the length of the night, equinoxes and solstices, among other things. The previous record was claimed by Franck Muller with its Aeternitas Mega 4. The AM4 still claims the title of most complicated wristwatch, with its 1,483 components and 36 complications, 25 of them visible. This has a grande sonnerie capable of playing the chimes of the clock at Westminster Cathedral, a Gregorian calendar, a moon phase with an error of only 6.8 seconds per lunar month. The Franck Muller brand is justifiably proud of its achievement. Under the heading ‘Masterpiece’, it blurbs, ‘This watch inspires countless emotions as an exceptional timepiece and is simply unique in the eyes of lovers of the art of fine mechanics and luxury watch makers.’ It costs $2.7 million.
5 But by September 2015, the situation had worsened again. The value of Swiss watch exports was down 7.9 per cent on the previous year. The biggest declines were seen in Hong King and the United States. In the market for watches valued between 200 and 500 Swiss francs, where the Apple Watch did most of its damage, the news was worse still – a year-on-year decline of 14.5 per cent.
Timekeepers Page 21