Smaller watch brands find their niche

Certina has built up a reputation for its DS line. Certina

While the big names at the Basel watch and jewellery fair will spend millions of francs on stands to present their latest luxury creations, the smaller brands will also be out in force.

Before Basel opens its doors on Thursday, swissinfo took a look behind the scenes of the mid-price Certina brand, a member of the Swatch group.

If there is anything that is characteristic of the watch world it is enthusiasm and emotion, and that is also true at the house of Certina.

Founded in 1888 in Grenchen in western Switzerland, Certina was the brainchild of the Kurth brothers, Adolf and Alfred.

The young enterprise specialised in the making of components and ébauches (movement blanks) and neither the owners nor their three workers dreamed of making complete timepieces.

Sporty watch

But the brand has flourished and is now known as the sporty watch in the Swatch family.

“The whole Swatch group has 18 brands in the portfolio and it’s very important to have your own position. Ours is in sport and in the price segment,” Certina president Adrian Bosshard told swissinfo.

“[The watches] are sporty in terms of quality, but also sporty in terms of the faces. And we also build up the brand with sporty communication,” he added.

As the largest and most important watch fair in the world, Basel attracts retailers from all over the world, and no one wants to miss out on an opportunity to capture the business.

“In Basel… we can really present the whole philosophy and the whole environment of the brand,” Bosshard commented.

“First, it’s important for the Swiss market because almost all of the Swiss retailers will be there. They are important partners but we also have a lot of international partners who’ll be coming,” he added.

Vying for business

Not surprisingly, everyone – Certina included – vies for business with new products.

“The product department has to be ready with all the new prototypes and with all the new watches, and all the new communication tools have to be ready to present to a worldwide public,” Bosshard explained.

Certina has over the years built up a reputation for its DS line of timepieces, DS standing for double security. It is perhaps a logical progression from the name Certina, which means “sure, secure, certain”.

The DS concept involves mounting the movement inside an elastic, shock-absorbing ring made of synthetic rubber so that the movement “floats” inside its case.

There’s also thick sapphire glass, special insulators and a reinforced case back, all designed to make the watch watertight to 200 metres.

“We’ve been working since the end of the 40s on this quality concept, and every year we make improvements. With this we can distinguish ourselves from the other brands in the same price segment,” Bosshard explained.

Durable watches

He told swissinfo that without the know-how of the Swatch group, it would not be possible to produce such durable watches today in the mid-price range.

“Our message is to offer the best price/quality ratio and also offer to the end consumer a really individual design,” he said.

“It’s not our aim to compete with [top-end brands] Omega or Tissot. It wouldn’t make any sense. We are different. We communicate to a different end consumer,” he added.

To prove that innovation is one of the key success factors at Basel, Certina is presenting no fewer than 40 new models for launch at the beginning of the year.

And Bosshard is proud of them, as most watch bosses are when presenting their new babies.

“We will make a tribute to the 1970s. We were then partners with Nasa [National Aeronautics and Space Administration] in a sea expedition and we then made a 1,000 metres waterproof automatic watch.”

“We’ll relaunch that model this year in a limited edition of 1888 pieces, 1888 being the year we were founded,” he said.

“And then there’s a new DS Master waterproof to 200 metres with a very attractive price for a chronograph of under SFr500. And there are also watches for the ladies,” he added.

swissinfo, Robert Brookes in Biel

Key facts

The company was founded in 1888 by brothers Adolf and Alfred Kurth.
It is perhaps best known by watch enthusiasts for its DS line, standing for “double security”.
In 1960, the DS went with two teams of mountaineers on their ascent of Dhaulagiri, an 8,222 metre peak in the Himalayas.
It has been embedded in a hockey puck and even dropped from a helicopter from a height of 400 feet.
By 1968, Certina had sold more than 300,000 DS wristwatches.

In brief

Certina is a member of Switzerland’s Swatch group, the largest watchmaker in the world.

Certina is the sporty brand in the family and the name stands for “sure, secure, certain”.

The company is presenting some 40 new models for show at the Basel exhibition.

One of the novelties is a replica of a watch which went on expedition with Nasa in the 1970s and is waterproof to 1,000 metres.