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The history of Omega

Without doubt, Omega’s standout marketing strategy of recent times is the clever use of product placement as a means of boosting the brand.

The movie character James Bond of 007 fame, switched his watch from a Rolex Submariner to an Omega Seamaster in the 1995 movie Golden Eye and he’s been wearing an Omega ever since!

But the Omega watch brand has a long history of innovation dating back well over 150 years.

Like one of its most famous competitors, Rolex, it too was founded at La-Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. In 1848, Louis Brandt, just 23-years-old, started assembling key wound pocket watches from parts supplied by local craftsmen. It was a small operation that would one day grow into one of the world’s most successful watch brands.

Brandt’s two sons, Louis-Paul and César took over the business following their father’s death in 1879, pushing Omega to the next level by moving the operation to a small factory the following year. It proved so successful, they moved to a converted spinning factory in Biel-Bienne, where Omega’s headquarters are still located today.

The brothers both died in 1903 but by then Omega had become one of Switzerland’s biggest watch companies, employing 800 people and producing 240,000 watches a year.

The company was entrusted to their off-spring, however the eldest of the four, Paul-Emile Brandt was just 23-years-old at the time of his father’s death. Despite his youth, the young man proved to be the greatest architect and builder of the Omega brand over the next half a century.

Following the First World War, Brandt worked toward the union of Omega and Tissot and later the group SSIH. Under his leadership and that of his successor Joseph Reiser, the SSIH group grew enormously buying or creating around 50 companies including Lanco and Lemania, maker of the famous Omega chronograph movements.

By the 1970s SSIH had earned the coveted title of Switzerland’s number one producer of finished watches and number three manufacturer in the world. Omega was outselling it’s fiercest rival in the Swiss luxury watch market, Rolex. While Rolex focused on branding and the famed mechanical precision of their watches, Omega concentrated on producing revolutionary watches. Even back then Rolex watches were more expensive than an Omega.

But the dominance of Omega and Rolex took a blow soon after when Japanese watch manufacturers such as Seiko and Citizen took a large slice of the market with their pioneering quartz movement. Omega took the challenge head on, offering Swiss made quartz movements.

The greatest test for the company, however came with the world financial crisis of the mid-1970s. In a major financial restructure, it merged with another Swiss watch making giant, Allgemeine Schweizerische Uhrenindustrie AG in 1983 and two years later they were taken over by a group of private investors and re-named Societe de Microelectronique et d’Horlogerie, more commonly known as SMH.

Under new guidance, the group regained its dominance becoming one of the top watch producers in the world and in 1998 became known as the Swatch Group which makes not only Omega but Blancpain, Swatch and Bregeut.

In a clever marking ploy, Omega focused on product placement as a means of boosting the brand. The movie character James Bond of 007 fames, switched his watch from a Rolex Submariner to an Omega Seamaster in the 1995 movie Golden Eye and he’s been wearing an Omega ever since.