007’s Watch

At one point in the film Casino Royale, James Bond (Daniel Craig), responding to a question from Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), his eventual lover, says, when asked, that he’s wearing an Omega watch. “It’s an Omega.” He pronounces Omega with a long e sound (the word “me”), which may or may not be entirely correct. But no matter.

Craig’s Casino Royale is said to have re-energized the 007 franchise, and in many ways it turned previous Bond films upside down. But regarding Bond’s wearing of Omega, not really.

Pierce Brosnan, Craig’s predecessor, also wore Omega watches-particularly the Seamaster. In fact, up until roughly the time that Brosnan assumed the Bond role, 007 wore an upper end watch that begins with an “R,” not a bad choice of timepiece for a spy at all.

But as Brosnan was beginning his stint as the British spy with a license to kill, the commercial marketplace was looking high and low for product placement-inserting their products and logos into films and other media. While it may seem as though we’ve always had Sony computers in films, that’s not the case. Think back to Stephen Spielberg’s E.T. and you might remember Reece’s Pieces being fairly central in a couple of scenes. (In fact, film lore has it that the movie production company first sought M&Ms for E.T’s candy of choice; a company executive there said “no” and that was the end of his career-if lore has any connection to the truth.)

A side note regarding Bond: in 2002, celebrating the 40th anniversary of 007, Omega manufactured 10,007 units of a commemorative watch with a special model number and 007 inscribed into the metal clasp.

To the extent that we think about James Bond’s watch-perhaps only a watch and a Bond aficionado-we think about Omega. We may also think of a recent pictorial ad showing Steve McQueen wearing an Omega.

In the case of Omega watches, product placement has worked quite well. We do tend to associate the brand with masculinity, bravado, tough-guy persona, and unwillingness to compromise with the status quo. Fair enough: Omega is a superlative watch, both aesthetically and mechanically appealing. And generally, for the money, Omega is as good an upper-end watch as you’d ever want.

Based in Switzerland, Omega, as with many other high-and low-end watches, is owned by Swatch. Most watch elitists have long since made peace with Swatch, as well they should. Swatch ownership of all its brands-including Blancpain and Breguet-has wisely allowed them to continue to retain historical design, aesthetic philosophy, and quest for innovation.

In 1999 Omega made history with the development of the Calibre 2500, the first mass-produced watch with a co-axial escapement. A co-axial escapement, versus a traditional lever, needs almost no lubrication and as a result should increase watch longevity significantly. Most watch observers consider this development to be one of the more significant in recent years.