James Bond Watches Blog

"James Bond's Choice" magazine ad by watchmaker Omega, product placement partner with Seamaster 2531.80 worn by Pierce Brosnan in "Tomorrow Never Dies"

This layout without a doubt tops my list of favorite James Bond advertisements. Period.

Print shown at left from the December 1997 issue of Gourmet magazine — which suggests something about audience targeting, as much as anything else.

Actor Pierce Brosnan is featured as James Bond, with Omega reference 2531.80 Seamaster wristwatch and BMW motorcycle. Promotional tie-in is for the movie then-in-release, Tomorrow Never Dies. It uses a standard layout that was made available for Authorized Omega Dealer use, with an option for them to drop-in their logo and contact information lower-left.

Minimal copy describes the James Bond watch being promoted here, in deference to an image of the timekeeper itself, which dominates.

From a historical perspective, it’s worth noting that the quartz reference 2541.80 Seamaster featured in GoldenEye (1995) was actually the only established James Bond Omega prior to Tomorrow Never Dies.

And whereas the magazine ad with GoldenEye tie-in utilized an existing movie image, this Tomorrow Never Dies raises the bar with creative that is both custom-photographed and strongly invested in leveraging the watchmaker’s product placement partnership with Eon Productions.

The effective continue reading…

Although Donovan "Red" Grant did wear a Girard-Perregaux watch in the novel "From Russia with Love," it never became a James Bond wristwatch

Some myths die hard.

They go down kicking and screaming, in fact.

For perhaps as many as fifty years, maybe more — too many watch writers insisted that Girard-Perregaux was a James Bond watch.

But it never was.

And I busted that myth here on this James Bond Watches Blog two years ago this month. See “The Girard-Perregaux wristwatch that James Bond did not wear,” February 14, 2010.

Confusion stemmed from reference to villain Red Grant’s “bulky gold wristwatch on a well-used brown crocodile strap,” described by Ian Fleming on the first chapter of From Russia with Love (Jonathan Cape, 1957).

“It was a Girard-Perregaux model designed for people who like gadgets, and it had a sweep second-hand and two little windows in the face to tell the day of the month, and the month, and the phase of the moon.”

Fast forward into climax and denouement of the novel: Bond’s own watch destroyed by Grant, Bond kills Grant, Bond takes watch of Grant’s dead wrist and wears it as his own from there on out.

Trouble with such simplistic wristwatches of James Bond stories is that they miss what happened in between continue reading…

Heuer 980-series Night Dive watch ad, placed just a few years before it would become a James Bond watch in "The Living Daylights"

This advertisement is from the August 1983 issue of Skin Diver magazine.

Among watch models featured, we see the reference 980.031 PVD Night Diver from what was then the Heuer Time & Electronics Corporation.

Actor Timothy Dalton wore that model as James Bond in the Eon Productions 007 movie, The Living Daylights, 1987.

Technical specifications include details on the phosphorescent glow-dial (after just 10 seconds of exposure to light, the entire dial was said to glow for an average of 10 minutes).

Beyond that, tritium markers on the hands markers at 12, 6, and 9 o’clock positions glowed “even without previous activation.”

A total of 6 color and size variations are shown here, beyond which, alternatives were “available with non-phosphorescent dials.”

In addition to providing historical information on reference numbers and certain specifications, advertisements such as this make great collector pieces in their own rights. I know some people who focus on individual watches, but go deep with them — building out what they own to include original packaging, instructions, ads such as this, and collateral material.

Often at nicely accessible prices.