Everyone knows Apollo is just awesomely cool, right? Not the Greek god, even though he is the god of archery, but NASA's moon landing missions of the late 1960s and early 1970s. It's so cool that one British watch-making company has decided that the ultimate way to show your love for all things Apollo is to strap a DSKY-lookalike computer to your wrist. But it's also decided that the best way to market this is to use fashion-man pose shots.
I have a confession to make and it's one that I'd best get right out of the way now. I am obsessed with Apollo. I was born half a year after the first Moon landing and my formative years as a child were spent recreating every mission, rocket, and near-disaster with cardboard tubs and plastic bricks. It's a passion that's not dulled one iota, in all the years that have since passed.
Anyway, as much as I love Apollo and anything associated with it, I'm not sure the DSKY Moonwatch is right for me. First of all, as one would imagine with such a unique design, it's not exactly cheap: £779 in the UK, including VAT, and £659 for other countries, minus taxes. I suppose in the world of custom watches, that is cheap and it's more of a collector's item, rather than a wear-it-every-day item.
But what's really putting me off, for reasons that I can't quite put my finger on, are the marketing shots. In some ways, they're of the same age as Apollo and I half expected to see some pictures including cigarettes and other aspects of advertising now long gone. I get a whole 'fashion-man' vibe from them and as someone who is very much not a 'fashion-man', I feel that I'm not the kind of person who Apollo Instruments wants buying its watch.
Yet I am, because of my Apollo obsession, and I can't help but feel that I'm not alone in this regard. The DSKY Moonwatch may well be a roaring success for them but I wonder if a simpler/cheap build, with a lower price, and a more geek-focused marketing strategy would have been a better decision. Time will tell, I guess.
