Main image source: www.instagram.com/officialwrc

Disclaimer: These opinions are my own and I am not affiliated with any of the brands or organizations mentioned in this article. Furthermore any links I provide are for additional context only and do not imply endorsement. I receive no financial compensation for mentioning any of these organizations or providing any of these links.

If you grew up in Europe playing video games during the PlayStation 1 era, then you have heard of and probably played Colin McRae Rally 2.0.

I can still remember vividly the commercial for the game, which is rightly regarded as a classic and which I can confirm remains very fun to play today!

I can confirm this because owing to my love for retro gaming, I’ve been playing it and one of its successors, Colin McRae DiRT Rally 2.0 extensively, which got me thinking:

Why aren’t more luxury watch brands, and luxury brands in general, involved in the sport of rally racing?

Watches and cars are a match made in mechanical heaven, starting from the early days when watch companies would make gauges and clocks for automobiles, to now when almost every well-known brand you can think of - in both fields - has at some point reached over and shaken hands with the other side: Breitling for Bentley, Aston Martin and Jaeger-LeCoultre, Ferrari and Panerai, just to name a few.

Indeed, in Formula 1 the associations between watches and cars are almost automatic, with some of the world’s most famous drivers very closely associated with their specific brand sponsors (IWC and Lewis Hamilton is the one that always jumps to the top of my mind). From the broader view of the sport overall Rolex is deeply, deeply intertwined to the extent that it is not only the “Official Timepiece of Formula 1”, but also a “Global Partner”.

I can understand why luxury watch brands feel the need to invest so much money in F1: their advertising spend needs to go where their target market is, and owing to its reputation as “the most expensive sport”, F1 certainly has many fans willing and able to buy luxury watches.

Back to rallying now, which is certainly different than F1, but absolutely no less exciting, and here is where the historical assocation between watches and cars seems to break down (no pun intended…): by comparison, rally racing and the WRC seem underserved.

To be clear, it’s not that there is no involvement from watch brands, it just seems that it has been very thin given all the options for sponsorship that could make sense:

• Sponsoring the WRC as a whole

• Sponsoring individual rallyes

• Sponsoring teams (at different levels of the rally pyramid)

• Sponsoring drivers

Even with all this choice, the list of watch and WRC partnerships seems very sparse indeed:

• In the opening scenes of “Race For Glory: Audi vs. Lancia”, a Longines timing board is clearly shown; I cannot find any further details however on this apparent partnership.

• Despite the primitive graphics of Colin McRae 2.0 on the PSX, you can still make out “Certina” on certain barriers, and the brand’s watches did apparently grace the legend’s wrist. It’s notable also that in 2013 Certina became official timekeeper of FIA rally races.

• Apparently, Anonimo took over timekeeping duties in 2018, and as far as I can tell that was still the case in 2020, but I can’t confirm the current status of that deal, or even who currently holds the title of "Official WRC Timekeeper”.

• The official WRC pitch deck for 2023 lists TW Steel as a sponsor

• Richard Mille had (and maybe still has) deals with individual drivers such as Sébastien Loeb and Sébastien Ogier (this brand’s involvement in WRC, by the way, makes perfect sense).

• As for team sponsorships, apparently Hyundai Motorsports had (maybe still has?) a deal with a brand named “Jacques Lemans”, and Toyota Gazoo Racing sells this piece on its online store (it’s not good…)

• The iconic Paris-Dakar, now named “Dakar Rally” is sponsored by Rebellion Timepieces (this is a very, very niche brand but whose positioning does seem to be aligned with the prestige of this event); Edox was a prior sponsor.

• Speaking of Edox, in 2009 the brand signed a 3.5 year deal to be the WRC’s official timekeeping partner.

Again, this is something, but the white space appears to me absolutely vast. Recently, consultancy firm LuxeConsult released its list of the top 20 Swiss watch brands. I’m listing these below, and of them, how many have significant, well-publicized rally sponsorships?

Granted, not every watch company in this list has historical automotive associations, but many of them do, and this is just the Swiss brands!

Off the top of my head, I can think of several examples of potential tie-ins:

• Despite Omega’s positioning of the Speedmaster as the “Moon Watch”, let’s not forget that it was originally conceived as a racing chronograph. In fact, Omega’s turn towards larger and more technically focused watches could be an asset to rally racing, and I could absolutely see a Speedmaster Super Racing (equipped with its Spirate regulation system) strapped around the driving suit of a pilot and co-pilot duo.

• Tudor, which has just signed on as an F1 sponsor and which also has a very big presence in yacht racing, is all about advertising the toughness of its watches; what better proving ground than a rally?

• Casio has Edifice models designed around F1, would a G-Shock (perhaps a Mudman?) not be the perfect line to associate with the WRC?

• Grand Seiko made a watch associated with the Nissan GT-R, is it not possible to pivot to Toyota and their Gazoo Racing team?

These are only the most immediately obvious suggestions; I could go on and on, talking about how Bremont (which has F1 associations) might also find a receptive audience with its messaging around technical excellence, or how Frédérique Constant might want to deepen the ties to rally that it already has with a watch focused on the Austin Healey.

Indeed, the advantages that WRC touts for sponsors are, from my years of experience looking at watch ads, totally aligned with the qualities of the products that luxury watch brands often want to put forth, such as toughness and versatility.

Take a look at this page from the WRC Factbook 2023:

It seems to me that if I’m a watch brand, I’d like to be able to launch a campaign that has global reach, runs year-round, and exposes me to an on-site audience that appreciates mechanics and durable machines that can operate in any condition around the world, but again…

Where are all the luxury watch brands?

I’m sure that F1 touts many of the same advantages, and that’s where we get to the heart of the issue: if F1 and WRC share the same sponsor benefits, why do all the ad dollars seem to flow only to F1?

Yes, the audience for WRC is smaller than F1 and there is the perception that the former doesn’t have the glamour of the latter, but should that matter?

The rough-and-tumble action of a rally is exactly the point - it’s certainly what draws me to it over F1 - and it seems odd that brands wanting to advertise the capabilities of their watches would choose the relatively more sterile platform (whose courses are arguably not nearly as beautiful as a rally’s!).

The smaller audience hypothesis doesn’t make sense to me either, and actually to me this would seem to be the foundation for several advantages from the perspective of a luxury watch brand attempting to maximize the returns on its ad spend:

• Cheaper sponsorship rates than with F1

• Potential to be exposed to an audience that may not already be familiar with the brand yet could still be highly receptive to its products and values

• Ability to do so in a much less crowded field than F1

• Potential to capture mindshare early and grow with the sport (which does seem to recognize some of its current limitations to spectator adoption and has started a working group to outline how WRC can increase its profile)

Going forward, I do believe that the watch industry will face a contraction. However, this does not mean the luxury watch industry is going away, but rather that brands will have to be hyper-focused on the return of their marketing spend, and be resourceful in pursuing unexplored opportunities..

It seems to me that WRC is one of those opportunities, an untapped market which presents a favorable test-bed for the development of new growth areas and customers, while providing a relatively low barrier to entry with the opportunity to scale up as the sport expands.

Did I miss something in my analysis? Are watch sponsorships somehow all over WRC but just not well publicized?

If so, please let me know in the comments!

Edits:

• Wording added to reflect Edox’s involvement in rally, which I found out via the excellent YouTube video FLAT OUT - The History of Rally.

• Reference to Longines apparently sponsoring the WRC in the 1980’s.