Survey results (preliminary): "How does new James Bond Rolex choice influence your opinion of 34mm watches?" July 8, 2011: 227 voters, so far
Part 3 of 3 here strongly wraps up the series this week, which seeks to put just how much self-selecting members of the Rolex community actually do care about affiliation of their brand with “James Bond.”
The last James Bond movie premiered over 2½ years ago.
It’ll be another 1½ years until the next one comes out.
Carte Blanche, the Ian Fleming continuation novel, written by Jeffery Deaver, was published on May 26, 2011, in the United Kingdom.
That’s 3 years since the 007 book before it, Devil May Care.
Little more than a month after confirming that Jeffery Deaver had put a Rolex on his own Carte Blanche James Bond — a 34mm Oyster Perpetual Date, black dial, domed bezel — I put out a poll to the same audience whose surveys were covered here on July 18 and 20.
“The fact that James Bond wears a 34mm Rolex in Carte Blanche:” was the lead, with 8 options for response. Pro and con were balanced at 3 each, with “no impact” and “No opinion / refuse to answer” rounding out the choices.
In less than a week, 227 votes had been cast: Over 80% more than the April 2009 “Bond 23″ fantasy watch query.
Already more than twice as many supplemental comments as either my 2008 or 2009 survey on generally similar subject matter.
Shouting indifference
A modest 3 to 4% voted “No opinion / refuse to answer.” The vast majority, over 80% so far, went out of their way to make sure everyone would know that they were not influenced one way or the other by having a new James Bond watch option via Rolex 115200 Oyster Perpetual Date.
Really? Let’s take a closer look.
From the 2008 survey results, we see that almost 12% of the respondents (11 actual people) voted that they would be “Devastated!” to learn that the original 007 Rolex was not a Submariner. The same number said they’d be “Moderately disappointed,” and another 16% (15 actual people) would react by feeling “Somewhat down….”
That means almost 40% (37 actual people) of the 2008 voter responses were predisposed to bias in favor of Submariner as the James Bond Rolex watch model. Further, as I noted here on the James Bond Watches Blog post of July 20, it’s simply “Rolex” they want to see associated with Agent 007, as opposed to “Rolex, because that’s what creator Ian Fleming specified.”
Back to the recent 2011 results: 20% (20 actual people) said they are “very unlikely to consider any 34mm Rolex model” for themselves based on the James Bond affiliation observed in Carte Blanche. Easily attributable to the die-hard “Submariner is the only watch 007 should wear!” fans identified elsewhere.
Conversely, over 7% of those currently voting so far say that they are to some degree more likely to consider a 34mm Rolex watch thanks to the James Bond connection in Carte Blanche.
Given that Ian Fleming’s own James Bond Rolex measures 36mm, general style trends in the main, and that James Bond in the movies has worn the Rolex Submariner Date and larger case sizes since 1989 (topping out at 45.5mm for the Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean worn by Daniel Craig for his first appearance as Bond in Casino Royale, 2006), I’d call that an impressive finding.
(As an aside, in a June 22 poll I ran on a completely separate Rolex fan forum, 39% of those responding said the 115200 is a “Good Choice” for James Bond in Carte Blanche.)
People who really don’t care show it by not caring
Customer loyalty analysists and human resource departments desperate to mine meaningful insights from employee exit interviews find all sorts of value in the 80% “indifferent” response seen in this 34mm Bond-Rolex feedback.
I think it’s a serious mistake to intepret the 80% “indifferent” as “disinterested or uninvested in the topic.” At most, they are unpersuaded by the Carte Blanche direction to change from their own previous size- / model-interests in Rolex as a James Bond watch.
Compare this to the modest 4% indicating “No opinion / refuse to answer.” That’s the lowest showing for this option from among the 3 polls being discussed. And it’s up another 3% — from among a significantly greater number of responses — in comparison to the corresponding question from 2 years ago: Now making it over 96% of Rolex fans who care about what watch James Bond wears.
Whatever the case, those who care about Rolex watches unquestionably care in large numbers about keeping that brand connected to James Bond. Now more than ever.
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