I had a very interesting meeting with several of the Seiko executives responsible for the design, production & launch of the new Seiko Spring Drive watch, recently in Tokyo, at their head office.

Whilst the watch itself is very interesting, what is, in my opinion, even more interesting is the role this watch will play in the global repositioning of Seiko as a watch brand. Last year Seiko commissioned Gallup, the polling firm, to do a survey on consumers' perceptions and values of watch brands. The results could not have been easy reading for Seiko; the respondents to the survey placed the company and the notional value of the watches somewhat higher than either Bulova or Citizen but lower than all the Swiss brands. And whilst the perceived value of a Seiko watch had risen since the previous year, it had only done so from a low of $191 to $222.

When Mr. Shinji Hattori took over the reigns at Seiko, he made a decision to raise the perceived image of Seiko outside Japan, to move it from one where the perceived value of a Seiko watch was in the low $200s into the image it has always had in Japan, that of a fully integrated watch company, a leader in technology and one whose perceived value would be several times higher than the one it currently has. The international launch of the Spring Drive fulfils all of these objectives; in one bold move it separates Seiko from all other watch companies, introducing a technology which is not currently used by any other company and one which promises to deliver unheard of accuracy in what is essentially a mechanical watch.

It is now fairly well known that Toyota lose a significant sum of money on every Prius hybrid car that they sell; however they have made the decision that the benefits to their reputation both in the technology and environmental areas are worth that cost. I have a gut feeling that Seiko may be following a similar route with the Spring Drive and subsidizing the retail price of the watch. If you look at the price of the Credor Spring Drive and then factor in the point that the new Seiko movement is actually more complicated than the Credor version, as it uses an automatic winding system compared to the Credor's manual movement. The new Seiko movement is still assembled by the tiny team of 5 watchmakers at the Suwa factory who currently make the Credor and Japanese domestic Spring Drives. They are Seiko's most qualified workers and represent a genuine bottleneck in the ultimate production capacity for the new movement. It is estimated that the first watches will hit the stores in October/November and that less than 600 will be available worldwide before Christmas this year and less than 200 of those will be reaching the US. Obviously watchnuts, early adopters, technology freaks and Seiko management will easily soak up this small quantity, in fact I think the initial audience for this new watch & technology is in excess of 5,000 individuals. In other words I think that Seiko could sell 5,000 of these without any real advertising, just the spin off from stories such as this one and similar ones in both watch & technology magazines. The real test for the Spring Drive will come when all of these people have been satisfied and general market customers have to be convinced not only about the technology but about the whole concept of a $3,500 Seiko.

For what is very much a low production watch, Seiko have made the brave decision to offer two different models, either strap or bracelet models; what makes the decision brave is that they have chosen to give each of these variations different case and dial designs. The case design of the bracelet version is discussed below whilst the strap model uses a double bulged case, which (in my opinion) bears an unfortunate resemblance to Bibendum (the Michelin Man), it also differs from the bracelet version in only being available as a subsidiary seconds model, whilst the bracelet model has a sweep seconds hand.

The watch has already proved to be a hit with those retailers who saw the watch at Basel earlier this year, as an example, retailers in Ireland snapped up the country's full allocation of watches within 48 hours of the Basel launch.

Seiko's attention to detail is also evident in the packaging of the watch; the box is made from what appears to be white leather, with a woven top which has a mirrored panel on which the watch name is inscribed. The box interior is in contrasting black leather with the watch centered on a pad, inside a raised circle, also inside the box is the certificate printed on a velum like material. The outer box also contains the instruction manual, which as it is in many languages, is as thick as a copy of the Readers' Digest and a DVD which contains a video showing how the Spring Drive works.

 

But the marketing looks smart to me & I think that they will succeed, for a start they have chosen NOT to use their Asian market only brands such as Credor or Grand Seiko, but have had the courage to launch the watch as a Seiko, plain and simple. Interestingly the watch will not be sold in Japan; it is principally a Europe and North American market only watch. The look of the watch plays an important role in its possible future success and here they have been really smart; it is the perfect watch for today's market, slightly oversized at 42 and 40.5 mm, and (for a Japanese watch) remarkably simple in design. The use of a concave sided drum shaped case (on the bracelet model) is unique in my experience and the finish on the case with its discreet use of polished and brushed finishes is remarkably restrained, the hands are works of art in themselves when examined through a 10 power loupe and the dial is protected by an anti reflection coated sapphire crystal rather than the 'hardlex' normally used by Seiko. The dial design is probably the nicest I have ever seen from Seiko, it has a wonderful high gloss finish (particularly on the black dial) with both the frame around the date window & the name 'Seiko' being raised from the dial surface. The winding indicator particularly rewards detailed inspection under high magnification; it is machine sunk several millimetres below the dial surface and features some of the nicest guilloche work I have ever seen. There are two distinct guilloche patterns one which is sunburst finish and radiates from the centre pinion of the wind indicator and one which is at right angles to it and is coloured silver and bears the actual graduations. The indices are diamond cut rectangles, highly polished and applied to the dial surface. The overall design concept is one of circles inside circles, which explains the side profile (if you think about it) and this is carried through to the winder where a small decentred circle is machined into its flat face.

 

I am extremely impressed by the bracelet, it is smooth beautifully constructed and very intelligently designed, for example the links are not symmetrical; rather one end is convex and the other concave, which allows each link to 'nest' inside its neighbour (see the attached picture for details), this results in there being less spaces between the links and therefore less chance of grit and detritus being caught in the gaps.

 

Having now lived with the watch for over four weeks, I can say I am very happy with the watch; it has never been off my wrist in that time (well actually there were two periods, one of five hours and another of 7 hours), I have showered with it, moved furniture and banged out several thousand words on my computer. In other words, normal life, during that period it has lost just less than one second. So I would expect it to be one second out in a month; which, in my opinion, is a phenomenal level of accuracy.

In conclusion I would like to wish Seiko well with this new watch, completely new concepts are rare in horology and Seiko are to be congratulated on having the will to bring this one to production; if you don't jump, you will never know if you can fly.