David Rosenthal: belief

Transcript context

…Which again, I will say bolsters my case that in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, Omega was the big brand. Rolex had a target in mind to beat, and that target was Omega who was bigger. But even though Omega was standard issue on the Apollo missions, not all of the Apollo astronauts chose to wear their standard issue watches. If you go to Rolex headquarters, there is an incredible signed picture from Apollo 13, the Apollo 13 mission, the Tom Hanks movie, signed by astronaut Jack Swigert, a character who’s played by Kevin Bacon in the movie. “To my longtime friend, René Jeanneret,” who I believe was Rolex head of communications at the time, “who enabled me to always be on time. ” Jack and (I think) maybe some of the other astronauts, too, preferred GMT-Masters and wore their GMT-Masters during the Apollo missions. Interesting. Like you said, the Omega Speedmaster famously is the moon watch. In many ways, it’s the big blemish in Rolex’s whole strategy of being the brand for people who accomplish the greatest heights in human history. But this is a great little way to slide in and take a little slice of that history too. And by the astronaut’s choice, much like Sean Connery.…

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