It’s not every day that you see a watch company advertise on television. Every once in a while, you might catch Seiko and Citizen, maybe a few brands like that. But you rarely see the super high-end brands or the smaller boutique makers on TV. So almost choked on my sausage-and-egg McMuffin this morning when I was flipping the channels and saw an advertisement for Hublot timepieces.
With a soothing, yet sophisticated voice providing the narration, and lush landscapes in the background, the ad seemed more like a infomercial for an expensive timeshare than a fine wristwatch. They focused primarily on the pieces in the Classic and Elegant lines. I didn’t see any of their Sport line and I certainly didn’t see John’s favorite, the Big Bang.
Most interesting of all was the timing and placement of the advertisement. The bit aired at about 10:35am on a Sunday morning on ESPN2. The show was Billfishing Xtreme Release League. I guess they figure if you’re a big game fisherman, you’re gonna need a serious timepiece as you struggle to land that catch. Maybe, just maybe, if Santiago in Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea was wearing a Hublot while he battled that noble marlin, he wouldn’t have lost track of the time and needed three days to bring it in.
