Brand Watches

The Seiko watch company has a compelling story behind their latest watch the Seiko Spring Drive Spacewalk launched at Baselworld.

The watch has been engineered to withstand the extreme environment of outer space and will be worn on the wrist of Richard Garriott, the sixth private-citizen space explorer, when he takes his trip this fall.

Garriott, a video game designer and the son of a NASA astronaut, will pay $45 million for his trip and plant to viisit the International Space Station and become the first private citizen to do a space walk outside of it.

He will be wearing the Seiko Spring Drive Spacewalk outside of his spacesuit and so the watch has to be able to survive zero gravity and an environment where temperatures can get as low as negative 22 degrees Celsius.

Battery-powered watches aren’t viable for space and the spring drive was chosen over a mechanical watch for safety and accuracy. The watch was designed to be light and recesses on the sides of the case save weight. It also has a dial with a Lumibrite treatment for readability.

The case is air tight and made of high-intensity titanium. The watch is a limited edition of 100, three will go with Garriott on his October adventure and the other 97 will be available in December and will retail for $25,000.

Casio released the DW-5600EH Eric Haze signature G-SHOCK watch, named after the well-known graphic artist. This new watch is designed to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the G-SHOCK series of shock-resistant watches, which was celebrated in May 2008.

Eric Haze is a graphic artist active in a variety of fields, including hip hop. The collaboration between Haze and G-SHOCK began in 1999, and this signature watch will be the third Eric Haze model to be released. The G-SHOCK’s 25th anniversary logo was designed by Eric Haze, a demonstration of the close association between G-SHOCK and Haze.

The new DW-5600EH Eric Haze signature model is based on the DW-5600E, which in turn inherited the square shape of the first G-SHOCK model, the DW-5000C. The Eric Haze signature is on the band and also appears with the EL backlight. The basic motif of the watch is a black-and-white monotone, with red accents for the Eric Haze signatures and the watch face. The 25th anniversary logo, designed by Eric Haze himself, is engraved on the back of the case. The watch comes in a specially designed original box.

Profile of Eric Haze:

Born in New York City, 1961. For over 30 years, Eric Haze has been a leader in the worlds of art, graphic and product design. In the 70’s, using the name, “HAZE,” he established his own influential styles of graffiti art. During the 80’s, Haze became one of the first artists to help visually communicate Hip Hop culture to the world via his graphic and logo design. To this day, Haze continues to produce a variety of work and shows at exhibitions worldwide. The collaborative relationship between G-SHOCK and Haze began in 1999, with Haze designing his first signature model, and has continued to progress for nearly a decade.

Aiming to strengthen its presence in the Indian market, Japanese premium watch maker Seiko plans to spread its reach to around 40 cities with 200 models by end of this fiscal.    

“The past one year has seen us emerge among the top three brands in the premium luxury watch segment in India. We have presence in 33 cities with 81 stores and are aiming to cover the remaining major centres in the country,” Seiko Watch India Sales and Marketing Head Niladri Mazumder told PTI.   

 He said Seiko, which launched its brand in India with a dozen models last year, is looking to have 200 models in the country by end of 2008-09 with presence in around 40 cities.    

Mazumder said the first year has seen the company position itself as a high-end brand. As a follow up, the company is now launching its Arctura collection which will hit the market in August-September.    

“While our existing Sportura and Permier collections are available in the Rs 6,700-55,000 range, the Acrtura would have a starting range of Rs 25,000, besides limited editions of above Rs 1.5 lakh,” Mazumder said.    

Springdrive, another international collection, would also hit India this year with a starting range of Rs 1.76 lakh.    

Currently Seiko outlets are multi-brand ones, the company plans to open its first Seiko Corner in Mumbai by August.   

“We have plans to set up eight flagship mono-brand outlets in the four metros, besides Bangalore and Hyderabad in three years,” he added.    

This year a few more cities would have Seiko outlets, including Gangtok, Guwahati, Nagpur, Bhopal and Dehradun.    

“The Indian luxury watch market has an estimated market turnover of Rs 350-400 crore a year and within five years we hope to emerge as the top brand with the maximum market share,” he said.

Swatch is celebrating 25 years of existence these days.

The company which brought back to life the Swiss watchmaking industry when Nicolas Hayek released a whole new line of plastic watches consisting of 12 eye catching designs, is not doing anything too special to commemorate its quarter of a century of pioneering.

With over 5000 watch models released over 25 years, there are no rumors that Swatch may prepare any particular watch model to celebrate its birthday, unlike its competitor Casio who’s celebrating the 25^th year of its G-Shock brand by releasing new models almost every month.

I’m a little disappointed, but it’s still possible that we may see some surprising releases soon.

Casio Europe and its parent company Casio Computer announced last week that it will be exhibiting at the world’s leading watch and jewellery show, Baselworld 2008, which will be held from 3 to 10 April in Basel, Switzerland. The theme of Casio’s booth at Baselworld 2008 will be Moving time forward: intelligent timing, smart design, unrivalled brands.

A total of 70 watches will be displayed: models in the Edifice brand of metal watches, which are well endowed with time measurement functions and embody the pursuit of speed; solid metal case, solar-powered radio-controlled Oceanus watches featuring the sea as a theme; shock-resistant G-shock watches, a line-up that is about to celebrate its 25th anniversary, and outdoor Pro Trek watches, which feature outstanding sensor capabilities.

The exhibit will convey Casio’s unique approach to watch development, which always aims to provide new benefits to users by combining the company’s proprietary timepiece movements, which make the most of digital technologies, and its superb designs, which use the special features of those movements to their best advantage.

Citizen Watch Co. Ltd. has implemented ENOVIA SmarTeam’s product lifecycle management software and SolidWorks 3D CAD software as part of a company-wide transition from 2D to 3D product design.

“We aim to reduce costs and development time by 30 percent using SolidWorks for product design and ENOVIA SmarTeam for data collaboration,” said Masayuki Watanabe, assistant manager section 2, business process management dept, watch business control center, Citizen Watch Co., Ltd. “We’re very satisfied with the usability and direction of SolidWorks 3D CAD.” A faster design process that encouraged innovation was a key goal for Citizen in choosing a PLM system as it sought an effective way of maintaining a steady stream of new products while staying ahead of the heavy competition in the watch industry.

Citizen Watch Co., Ltd uses ENOVIA SmarTeam as the central repository for product information created in SolidWorks 3D CAD software. Consolidating all product information in ENOVIA SmarTeam enabled Citizen to institute collaborative design processes that shorten the design process. Using ENOVIA SmarTeam’s concurrent engineering processes, multiple designers can now work on the same project at the same time without risk of conflict or error because they are referring to the same product information files.

ENOVIA SmarTeam users at Citizen Watch Co., Ltd. share product data in real-time across processes such as design, production engineering and manufacturing. Collaboration throughout the process enables the design teams to create products that are easy to manufacture. Designers spot and correct problems virtually, rather than in prototyping or production.

“We are proud to have enabled a high-end customer such as Citizen Watch Co., Ltd. to produce high quality products that are quick and affordable to develop,” said Alex Zeltcer, general manager, ENOVIA SmarTeam, Dassault Systemes. “Citizen Watch has taken a phased approach to PLM, gradually and cost-effectively deploying a PLM program over time, with real business benefits at every phase. With flexible and robust PLM functionality, we offer customers an opportunity to achieve a substantially low total cost of ownership.”

“It’s rewarding that a company like Citizen Watch Co., Ltd., so focused on precision and advancing the quality of its products, has standardized on SolidWorks as the foundation of its PLM strategy,” said Rainer Gawlick, vice president of worldwide marketing for SolidWorks Corporation. “We are committed to helping companies like Citizen embrace 3D design in way that leverages the considerable expertise they’ve developed in the 2D world.”

Timex, the country’s second largest watch brand, is focusing on selling watches only in the top end of the market. The company has already phased out all the products below Rs 1,000 price point to boost its bottom line.

The company is also bullish on tapping the new media for products promotion amongst the youngsters. Salil Sadanandan, senior vice-president, sales and marketing, Timex said, “By the year-end or early next year, the company would cut down on products below Rs 1,000 price points.

Initially, the company saw a dent in volumes but it has managed to increase the average price points, for better realisations.” Analysts estimate that the company’s focus on the mid and premium segment would enable it to improve average realisations, increase sales and expand margins.

During the first quarter of this financial year, Timex registered a net profit of Rs 3.8 crore compared with Rs 8.9 lakh for the corresponding period last year. Sadanandan mentioned that Timex is stimulating impulse buying by strategically locating the products in the retail space.

For instance, the company does not display watches below Rs 1000 in the Time Factory. In the long run, the company expects the core business to come from price points between Rs 2,500 and Rs 5000. He said, “There is a need to have control over retail as it has emerged as the biggest marketing medium.”

It plans to open about 150 Time Factory stores by the next year. Similarly, Timex has identified new media as one of the effective communicating mediums with the customers. Sadanandan said, “The increasing cost and fragmentation of the conventional communication tools has made new media a lucrative option.

From the consumer’s perspective companies have to adopt to the emerging mediums as they are the deciding factor in the brand connect.”

The G-Shock Mudman features shock resistant and mud resistant buttons as standard so you can enter any adventure race knowing that you’ll still be able to tell the time at the other end.

Aside from the watch the Mudman features the usual G-Shock options including World Time, Double Stopwatch, Countdown Timer and 5 multi alarms.

Those worried about losing it mid race or exercise needn’t, the watch features a dual catch on the strap for double protection.

Not as big as some of the G-Shock models the only complaint we have is the electro-luminescent backlight which will, for some, make the display (and time) hard to read.

In real terms what this means, is that rather than having the numbers black on white, it’s white on black. There is a backlight, but you still want to clearly see what it going on without having to press a button - that’s what those binary watches are for.

When it comes to personal electronic devices and neat gadgetry, it’s hard to beat the long track record of Japan’s Casio Computer Company, which has always found ways to squeeze more miniature functions into wristwatches than seems possible.
So it is with the new Pathfinder model which is geared to outdoor and weather aficionados.

This neat watch, officially known as the Pathfinder PAW1300T-7V, works as a digital compass, barometer, thermometer and altimeter. Oh yeah, it also tells time. Flawlessly, because of a technology it calls Waveceptor Atomic Timekeeping.

Somehow, those Casio engineers and designers have figured out a way to run this thing through solar power and through a super miniature antenna built right into the watch, it makes radio contact with the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology , and its military counterpart, the U. S. Naval Observatory.

Once you set the time zone the watch automatically adjusts itself several times a day with the Naval Observatory signal. That means when we here in Michigan go off Daylight Savings Time on Nov. 4, the watch will automatically fall back an hour.

Cost is $300 for a watch with a heavy black or green resin band or $350 for a titanium band. More info can be found at pathfinder.casio.com