Omega

“As late as 1977 in the Quartz Crisis, Omega is still the third largest watch brand in the world behind Seiko, the darling of the Quartz Revolution, and Timex, which was the volume player on the American side of Quartz.”

“Morgan Stanley and Lux Consult estimate it at 30.3% of the whole Swiss watch industry. No one else even comes close. Cartier and Omega have 7.5% each.”

“In this forties, fifties, sixties, Omega was the big brand. Like Rolex had a target in mind to beat, and that target was Omega, who was bigger.”

“Hilariously, they just bought the building where Omega has their flagship store in Geneva. So Omega makes a rent check out to Rolex every month.”

“In 1932, Omega released a waterproof watch, which is, I don't know, half a decade after Rolex. This is considered to be the world's first dive watch. No one talks about this today. You hear dive watch, you think Rolex, but Omega had the first dive watch.”

“So, as you know, the Rolex Deep Sea Challenge happened in twenty-twelve, and in twenty-nineteen, the Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean Ultra Deep Professional went 20 meters deeper.”

“That is the absolute opposite of what you need to do as a luxury company. It can't be like, this one's better than that one, or different levels of quality, or these imperfections here, and it's cute. It's like, absolutely not. That is critically important bec…”

“And I do think this was the very first sort of chip of what made Rolex a real challenger to Omega, who had been kind of the standard big Swiss watch brand. Rolex was really the one to bring lifestyle advertising to bear.”

“And certainly, eventually, Omega is paying a boatload of money to the James Bond franchise, so much so that there's a bump in Omega sales every five years when a Bond movie comes out. A huge bump.”