TRADITION HAS LONG PLAYED A PREDOMINANT ROLE IN THE WATCH INDUSTRY , KNOWN FOR ITS OLD-FASHIONED CONSERVATISM . A GOOD EXAMPLE OF THIS PHILOSOPHY IS THE GLACIAL PACE WITH WHICH ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS WATCH COMPANIES UPDATES ITS MODELS - IT IS NOT UNCOMMON FOR DECADES TO PASS BEFORE A SUCCESSFUL MODEL GETS A MAKEOVER .
Watch companies typically run advertisements dominated by pictures of watches or brand ambassadors . Yet a small watch company founded in Pittsburgh has broken with these conventions since 1998 , the year Michael Kobold enrolled at Carnegie Mellon University .
Bored with his studies of economics , the 19-year-old Kobold , a protege of famed master watchmaker and Chronoswiss-founder Gerd-Ruediger Lang , followed his mentor ’ s advice and started his own , eponymous watch brand .
Kobold quickly established a following among watch collectors . Its factory-direct approach combined with online merchandising were a novelty at the time and garnered heaps of media coverage not limited to endemic trade publications .
For some perspective , Amazon was founded just four years earlier and still struggling to convince consumers to order books online by the time Kobold was selling so-called tool watches costing up to $ 2,000 via its website . In these early days mechanical pilot ’ s chronographs as well as triple calendar chronos ( with or without moon phases ) were Kobold ’ s mainstay .
THE SOARWAY In 2002 , the company introduced its signature “ Soarway ” watch case , the result of input by Kobold brand ambassador Sir Ranulph Fiennes (“ the world ’ s greatest living explorer ” according to the “ Guinness Book of World Records ”) and master watchmaker Gerd-R . Lang .
To promote the new Soarway line , Kobold ran ads featuring Ranulph Fiennes giving one and a half thumbs up , a play on the fact that the explorer had selfamputed the thumb and fingers on his left hand after suffering frostbite at the North Pole .
Two years later , Kobold took this theme a giant leap further and ran what is perhaps the most controversial ad campaign to come out of the staid watch industry : Actor James Gandolfini ( The Sopranos ) is sitting on a stool smiling into the camera with his middle finger raised .
The full-page ad ’ s title read “ Even James Gandolfini Thinks Kobold Is No . 1 ”. Readers of “ The Economist ” were the first to discover this advertisement . Soon ,
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