Citizen Watch is marking 50 years of its proprietary Eco-Drive technology with a new marketing campaign and creative touting the tech’s ability to convert any light — natural or artificial — into a power source. The brand spot for the campaign, dubbed “Powered by Any Light,” follows two twentysomethings as they teleport through various indoor and outdoor settings, from a sunlit park to a strobe-lit club scene to an underwater dive — each a potential power source for the eco-friendly timepiece.
The campaign spotlights Citizen’s sustainability story, but it also points to a shift in the brand’s visual creative and an attempt to connect more with Gen Z and millennial consumers. The pacing and style from commercial director Matt Genesis deliver a pop-culture vibe, while talents Devin Druid from Netflix’s “13 Reasons Why” and horror filmmaker Annie Marie Elliot dial up the cultural relevance.
The objective was to communicate a layered, technical story “in the simplest, most compelling and contemporary way,” according to Citizen Watch CMO Carla Wilke. And for consumers who are newer to the brand, values alignment is a critical part of that narrative.
“If you bought a timepiece before and you start getting into watches, the specs become more important. But when you’re first flirting with buying a timepiece, you care about the brand, you care about the look, you care about values alignment more so than the value itself,” says Wilke. “We found that a younger generation of consumers cares about who Citizen is, what we stand for, how we show up.”
Styling factors into their decision to purchase as well, Wilke says. “They see watches as being an expression of their personal styles. They’re wardrobing, they’re buying multiple timepieces, wristing them, stacking them like cuffs as a piece of jewelry, and being interested in very streamlined, values-conscious brands.”
We spoke with Wilke about the campaign’s origins and inspiration; Citizen’s pivot to more narrative-driven creative; accommodating the unique tastes of Gen Z consumers; and the marketing challenges within the timepiece industry.
Chief Marketer: What are the origins of the campaign? And what insights drove you to embark on a new brand direction?
Carla Wilke, CMO at Citizen Watch: When it comes to the evolution of how we’re telling our story, I think about marketing as being both an art and a science. You need to leverage all of the technology at your disposal in order to make sound decisions and really measure performance. But at the same time, you have to continue to remember that you’re speaking to people about real things, real products. They’re making real decisions, spending real money with the brands that they engage with on a day-to-day basis. So it’s always important to me to make sure that we have a finger on the pulse of what consumers are thinking.
As a company, we’ve been focused on digital transformation for the last 10 years. We speak to 4,000 consumers every single week and have for a number of years, pre- and post-purchase, to really understand what they understand about our brands, what they think about our category, what materials are important to them, how they’re engaging with timepieces, what timepieces mean in the context of their lives.
We tapped into our own database and our continued conversations with consumers to understand what they were looking at and how they understood our brand and our technology and our values. And while Eco-Drive remains the number one reason why consumers buy a timepiece from Citizen, we’re continuing to introduce new generations of consumers to the brand itself and to the technology. And anyone that has worked in time pieces understands that talking about movement is incredibly difficult. I came into the category with no experience in it at all, and it is a monumental learning curve. It’s like climbing Mount Everest. Being able to tell the story of movement in a contemporary way, especially when it’s been integrated into the DNA of the company, and part of what has made the company successful for at least half of its lifetime, was a challenge.
CM: How has the brand storytelling shifted?
CW: We chose to tell the story a little bit differently, having earned a new place in the minds of consumers. We’ve been working with the next generation of consumers for a number of years. I always tell people in my team that you don’t walk up to somebody and say, “Hey, let’s get married.” You start off by getting to know them, wooing them, understanding what’s important to them, and then telling your story.
This was based on understanding that we needed to tell the story of our movement in a really simple, compelling and fresh way at a time where our competitors have seen what we’ve done, seen what we’ve mastered, and [are] also stepping into the space of talking about light-powered movements. It was time at this particular milestone to help consumers understand in a simple and seamless way why when you get a light-powered movement from Citizen, that you’re getting the very best of what’s available to you.
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CM: How do you stay in touch with consumers and integrate that feedback into your process?
CW: We use a number of tools to stay in touch with consumers. We have an adaptation. If you’ve ever watched political polling, then you’d be familiar with Harris Poll. They have a compass that’s specifically designed for a marketing standpoint. We customized Harris Poll for our needs a number of years ago, and that gives us a pulse, something that we can’t influence, on what consumers genuinely understand, how they’re talking about our competitors, how they understand our competitors’ messaging — but also our own. We run a continual survey on a week-by-week basis. And then we also have interaction with consumers — not necessarily through loyalty programs, but post-sale we’re engaging with frequent consumers to understand why they purchase our product. And we have an ongoing conversation in that way as well.
CM: Regarding this specific campaign, what are the marketing goals? Any KPIs you can share?
CW: We’re in the constant pursuit of always-on brand storytelling. In an era where technology plays such a significant part of how you approach speaking to consumers, having an always-on brand message is really important. As I look at the campaign and I look at our goals, I want to make sure that one of the primary benefits and technologies that we offer consumers is particularly clear.
So, understanding with absolute clarity what Eco-Drive is and what it offers you would be a primary KPI that I would be monitoring with this particular campaign. Because it’s really about taking a very complicated technology and making it very simple to understand for our existing consumers. And then reminding consumers that have had a warm and engaged relationship with the brand over decades why they fell in love with Citizen in the first place, and why they continue to choose us as their brand of choice.
CM: How are you reaching younger generations of consumers? Are you showing up in different places or platforms, or engaging communities to share your brand message and make an impact?
CW: Consumers today, especially younger consumers, are a lot more savvy … They are exposed to brands and marketing messages in a number of different ways than we were. I’m in my fifties now, and when I think about what I was looking at as a marketer young in my career versus what’s available now, it’s significantly different. What I have found is that over time, the pendulum always swings. You end up leaning heavily into technology, and then experiential really pops up again and consumers are looking to have a much more tactile relationship with the brand. I think that we’re at a point where you have to balance automation, personalization and experiential in a meaningful way. We’ve seen younger consumers really wanting to touch and feel the brand in the way that they haven’t in the past.
Digital still remains a critical component when it comes to search and discovery, but they’re looking for people like themselves to help them understand what the brand offers, that there’s a values alignment with who you are as a company, and that your product really delivers what you say it’s going to deliver.
We’re meeting our consumers in digital channels. We’re meeting them at different points of sale. We’re creating experiences for them to really brush fingertips with the brand and understand what that looks like. We’re asking influencers and content creators to discover us and share in a really authentic way what the product means to them, what they’ve discovered about the brand, in a way that’s conversational and mirrors what’s important to the consumers that we’re targeting right now. It’s 360 omnichannel, and depending on the story that we’re wanting to tell, the particular collection that we’re wanting to talk about, or the message that we’re wanting to breathe to life, we have to bring all of those components together.
CM: Are you going to do more experiential activations throughout your markets in the coming year?
CW: We certainly are doing more experiential components — not only as the brand, but also connected to our retail partners. The company as a whole has incredibly close relationships with what is a very complex distribution. So we do a lot of experiential activation in-store with our retail partners. We also have brand-driven activations and events, some for consumers directly and also for enthusiasts, influencers and trade. It’s a combination of those components. And we’ll be starting the kickoff of this campaign with a special event in March. You’ll see activation in all of our markets.
CM: Younger consumers are your target market for this campaign. What learnings can you share about them?
CW: Our fastest growing audience in our company is 18 to 24. We’ve seen exponential growth with this audience. More than a third of our customers on a monthly basis are sitting under 35 years old. So it’s a huge opportunity for us to introduce the brand, introduce the brand’s ethos and values, the technology, the quality of what we’re offering, to a younger consumer. We’ve also seen the under 35 consumer and the 18- to 24-year-olds leaning into timekeeping in a way that their grandparents did. I see Gen Z echoing the behavior of Boomers in a way that I never saw millennials do it. So for us, it’s a very exciting audience.
They see watches as being an expression of their personal styles. They’re wardrobing, they’re buying multiple timepieces, wristing them, stacking them like cuffs as a piece of jewelry, and being really interested in very streamlined, values-conscious brands. You see an expression of that in the styling and the SKUs that you’ll see come to market this year. The data that we leverage, just from a consumer standpoint, is used in product development, in our media mix modeling, in merchandising, in pricing, in long-term product planning and development. We’re leaning into the cues that we’re getting from those consumers in a myriad of ways.
CM: As a brand you have begun focusing more on storytelling and less on specs. And that is a brand shift. Tell us about that choice.
CW: If you are a watch enthusiast — if you bought a timepiece before and you start getting into watches – the specs become more important. But when you’re first flirting with buying a timepiece, you care about the brand, you care about the look, you care about values alignment more so than the value itself. We found that a younger generation of consumers cares about who Citizen is, what we stand for, how we show up, the fact that we’ve been consistently delivering value and developing for all citizens of the world since the inception of the company. And that consistency in storytelling and showcasing values alignment and how what we do and how we develop our product as a brand aligns to the things that are important to you in everyday life.
How do we touch your community? How do we lean into sustainability? What kind of materials do we use? Are we a fly-by-night brand, or do we provide really good customer service? Are we there for you? Does our product stand the test of time? Those things have become important.
Once you buy the timepiece and you realize that you’re getting an incredible amount of value … then it becomes, what am I wearing the watch for? Am I a dive enthusiast? And do I want to get into the world of dive when it comes to timepieces, and what complications and materials and innovations are there that I can really discover? Then it becomes a slightly different conversation.
We also find that men and women engage with timepieces very differently. The initial driver of what causes them to buy a timepiece is different. But generationally, values is a really important component when it comes to timekeeping overall.
CM: What are some of the marketing challenges that you face within your particular vertical?
CW: The biggest challenge that we face in our category is relevance. In an age where consumer sentiment is low, just generally, there’s a lot of macroeconomic factors affecting how consumers are thinking about money, how they’re spending money, how they feel about their future and their trajectory. Getting them to place a relevance and meaning on a timepiece is incredibly difficult. They have a million different choices. They can buy a laptop, they can invest in something else. So, elevating the meaning of time, drawing your attention to the present moment and what a timepiece can represent, is a challenge.
Being able to follow the consumer in an agile manner [is difficult]. Consumers are able to pivot on a dime. It’s very difficult for a large company with broad distribution to show up meaningfully at the right place at the right time with a consistent story. And I think all brands have that challenge as you evolve. How do you make sure that your distribution network is telling that same story and that the consumer has a robust, integrated experience? No matter where they choose to shop. That is a challenge for the watch industry in particular. We’ve been challenged with tariffs this year, really navigating what it means to the industry, who carries that cost, how it impacts the choice that consumers have available to them.
Also, there are a lot of different players in the timepiece space. You have fashion brands that are leaning into horology. You have different segments within timepieces overall. And being able to offer a compelling value proposition that you can really stake your reputation on in the context of a very complex marketplace remains a challenge for us. But I think the biggest challenge overall is being able to move at the speed of the consumer. They change, they pivot. They lean into technology a lot faster than you can necessarily upgrade systems to meet them there. And so doing that in a consistent, intentional way I think is one of the biggest challenges we face just as an industry overall.
And in timekeeping, when we develop timepieces, you’re looking 18 months to 24 months ahead. It takes a long time to develop a product, to get it certified appropriately so it meets all of your quality standards. Anticipating where customers are going to be, anticipating where trends are going to hit, making sure that you’re really listening to consumers delivering what they want while still planning that far in advance and anticipating what channel they’re going to use to engage with you, that is a dynamic balancing act season over season. It’s kind of like short, midterm and long-term planning all at the same time, as you try to figure out how to most appropriately and authentically engage with the customers that you’re courting.