The Lottery of Choosing a Good Watch Brand Ambassador

Watchmakers and sporting folk go back a long away, at least to 1927 when cross-channel swimmer Mercedes Gleitze was able to climb out of the briny, consult her Rolex Oyster, and know exactly how long it was to opening time.

It has generally been a happy bond. How can you argue with Hilary and Tenzing bounding up Everest on behalf of, yes Rolex once again, or the great Manuel Fangio roaring to victory to the ticking of the Heuer Carrera.

Lately, though, things haven’t been going so smoothly. In the particle accelerator that is a fully wired world, celebrity lifestyles come under closer scrutiny and celebrity life cycles speed up sharply. Crash and burn is the order of the day, and many athletes have neither the experience of the training to handle it.

Sports figures are an increasingly risky bet as a result. You never know when they are going to let you down, either by losing their sporting mojo, and thus slipping up on the promise of excellence, or by getting themselves into a pickle off-field, and losing the battle for “integrity”.

Sometimes watch brands try to pre-empt the first by choosing an ambassador decorative enough for it not to matter how good they are at their chosen sport Anna Kournikova hardly won a thing, but she had no problem finding a home with Omega. Ditto Michelle Wie, for whom the most Omega can say is that “she has a promising future ahead of her.”

The second dilemma is trickier, particularly when it involves what Bill Clinton’s handlers used to call “the zipper problem.” As Tiger Woods found out to his horror, there is little public tolerance, in the US at least, for the secular saint turned serial philanderer. Tag Heuer gamely stood by its man, but was forced to backtrack as a coast-to-coast tsunami of chatty alleged mistresses blew away its resolve. It stood firm in Europe but opted for retreat in the upright, uptight United States.

Omega fared better when the News of the World caught Michael Phelps in flagrante with a bong, noting dismissively that what Phelps did in his private life was “a non-issue.” He still decorates their web site, alongside the Seamaster Planet Ocean and a paean to his “pioneer spirit.”

There are ways to mitigate your risk, like Longines with Steffi Graf, an athlete who exudes class and elegance but is also, handily, retired. It remains to be seen how Andre Agassi, her more combustible other half, works out for the brand.

There is certainly danger out there, witness Gillette’s annus horribilis last year, when Woods, Thierry “Main de Dieu” Henry and even the sainted Roger Federer, jumped off a metaphorical building all at once and in broad daylight. No watchmaker has yet had to deal with that kind of triple-whammy. But the comment of an advertising professor to the Boston Globe applies to watchmakers as much as anyone else. “It was, “he said, “the perfect storm of knuckle-headed athletes, all screwing up at the same time. Thus the danger of using athletes as endorsers for your brand.”