The Chasing Horizons worldwide campaign features the Japanese watch brand’s Eco-Drive Satellite Wave F100 timepiece, which was launched at BaselWorld in March.
The campaign highlighted the watch’s ability to automatically adjust to the wearer’s current time zone by following a photographer and an ex-NATO pilot as they travelled across multiple time zones, “chasing” the sunset for as long as humanly possible.
A short documentary about the expedition was released for television and online purposes, with imagery from the trip used in print and digital media.
Citizen Watches Australia sales and marketing manager Rod Willment said that leveraging a global campaign would provide a number of benefits for the local industry.
“Having global product on offer, global marketing material and global support improves the consistency of our message and minimises the need for external support and the added costs associated with it,” he stated.
The Chasing Horizons campaign was the first to be launched under Citizen’s Better Starts Now marketing strategy, which was announced in July this year and included the launch of a new brand identity and website.
Commenting on the decision to introduce a global advertising campaign, Willment said, “The challenge for a company the size of Citizen is the ability to communicate throughout all of its regions with one voice and with one message.
“Over the last few years, Citizen has globally consolidated and strengthened its product offering and now in 2014 will introduce to the world why we do what we do. Everyone knows what Citizen does – manufacture watches – but more importantly is the ‘why’ and the Better Starts Now campaign explains this.”
Willment added that the campaign catered to recent changes in consumer engagement – namely, the introduction of mobile devices. He explained that digital content allowed Citizen and its retail stockists to engage with consumers through different social platforms such as Facebook and YouTube, and to then link back to their respective websites to create awareness and engagement.
“Consumers are spending more time online to do their research and are now engaging with brands within this space,” he said.
Citizen Watch Company, which was founded in 1930, is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Citizen Watches Australia was established in 1965 and currently operates across Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the South Pacific Islands with its head office based in NSW.
Watch CITIZEN's CHASING HORIZONS documentary
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