BOLT-68 Automatic Chronograph Limited Edition “SKULL”
Neuchâtel-based Bomberg is off the beaten track
At BaselWorld, Bomberg showed that it is still possible to make a difference in a saturated branch of watchmaking. It’s all about availability and personality.
By Joel Grandjean
Editor-in-Chief
Everything in the new adventure of the resolutely Swiss-made brand, Bomberg, sounds revolutionary! The only exception may be choosing Neuchâtel, one of the cradles of Swiss watchmaking, as its headquarters.
This young brand valiantly created a buzz at BaselWorld 2014 with its two collections, which count over 50 pieces in total, and its aggressive marketing strategy: a streetcar moving around Basel with the brand’s advertisement on it. The brand has chosen a territory where lay – as we tend to forget – the great economical conquests of tomorrow. It is the territory of volume, of great quantities, a place we enter with unbeatable price arguments.
For example, an affordable chronograph for less than CHF 1,000, equipped with a quartz Ronda caliber or watches ranging between CHF 500 and CHF1,000. The only exception is a mechanical model, a self-winding chronograph featuring a Concepto caliber – the 990001 –that costs around CHF 3,000. These watches are all testimony to its Swiss Made status. Their market is even more international nowadays, as it can count on the exponential increase of middle classes in emerging market economies.
Being idle, like everybody else
Bomberg makes the difference with the contract it signed with the Californian basketball player, Chris Birdman Andersen, who thus became the brand’s first ambassador. Andersen’s famous hairstyle features in sport photographs all over the world. Instead of paying annual rent to MCH – the organizers of BaselWorld – to rent a stand, which would have been set up in a small hall because it is a young company with fewer years of presence in watchmaking, Bomberg bought a house at 90 Isteinerstrasse, a few blocks away from the Messeplatz. The house has two floors, offers long-term comfort in a commercial home and a personalized, trendy, and warm welcome. Besides, Bomberg – used to taking certain liberties when it comes to the usual watchmaking jargon – prefers using the term “community” to talk about its clients.
Bombeg remains available to its clients, listens to their wishes and does not hesitate to associate its suppliers with its stirring campaigns.
The message is crystal clear: Bomberg is here to stay, to impress or even astound people. It does not only intend to maintain a strong position in markets opened in 2013 but also in the Middle East, the Caribbean, Holland, Greece and above all Latin America including Mexico, Panama and Venezuela. The brand is completely at ease and made the front page at the end of March - start of April 2014 with its timepieces whose main objective is not to leave anyone indifferent. “We chose a completely new and different concept, and sought a unique timepiece whereby the product changes functions and role”, argues David Sanchez, product manager.
It is now mission accomplished. The 1968 and Bolt-68 collections are sporty, contemporary and non-conformist. Bomberg reinterpreted classical watchmaking codes by adopting daring identity particles. Take the Bolt-68 for example. Available in fun, jungle or neo-vintage versions, it is equipped with push-buttons at 12 o’clock which can be removed from the wristwatch to fit a modern interpretation of a pocket watch.
It is a movement that may become a rite, an act that makes the object even more desirable in addition to an original response to the inevitable wave of smartwatches, stealers of wrists. What if Bomberg contributed to the launching of a trend of watch products that revolutionized the wristwatch?
