Fisticuffs in Bangkok: Seiko VS Omega

No, we're no longer in the middle of the Pacific War, but on August 14, 1965, and the Gazette de Lausanne has a rather warlike headline.

Building on its brilliant success at the Tokyo Olympic Games in October 1964, Seiko became a world-class sports timekeeper in less than five years, its revolutionary products for the time enabling it to win this prestigious contract from its Swiss rivals, headed by Biel-based Omega. Following the success of the Olympic Games, Seiko submitted its application to be timekeeper for the 1966 Asian Games, the fifth edition of which was to be held in Bangkok in December of that year.

In addition to the chronometry solutions, Seiko is offering to provide three giant electronic scoreboards worth 250,000 Swiss francs free of charge, with the total cost of the installations amounting to 500,000 CHF.

The Bangkok preparatory committee was not indifferent to Seiko's proposal, which came at the end of 1964, after the Tokyo Games. But as revealed by the Gazette de Lausanne, Omega signed an exclusivity contract with the committee on April 27, 1964.

“We have developed a piece of equipment that is superior in many respects to the one our company used for the Tokyo Olympics. We would be happy to use it for an international event.” These are the words of a Seiko spokesman reported in this article of August 14, 1965.

With a tempting proposal from Seiko, which had just beaten Omega to the timing contract for the Tokyo Games, and a contract signed with Omega before the '64 Olympics and Seiko's success in this venture, the Thai committee set up a sub-committee to find a compromise.

But Omega refused from the outset to share the event with Seiko, considering that this solution “would represent a definite loss of prestige in Far Eastern markets”, and proposed other solutions to the committee, with the support of the Fédération Horlogère.

Five days later, on August 19, 1965, the Gazette de Lausanne and the Journal de Genève both published an article explaining that Omega had also submitted its bid for the 1968 Mexico Games as early as April 64, at the same time as its bid for Bangkok, whereas Seiko only did so at the end of 64, after the success of the Tokyo Olympics and at the same time as their application for Bangkok.

A few days later, Omega learned that the organizing committee for the Mexico Games had decided to entrust Omega with the timing of their events.

Omega archives - Credit Fratello Watches

It is in this tense context that the Fédération Horlogère Suisse is getting its message across through the two most important newspapers in French-speaking Switzerland:

“According to the Fédération Horlogère Suisse, the decision taken in favor of the watchmaking industry by the Mexican organizing committee is all the more gratifying in that it puts the awarding of sports timekeeping in an objective perspective, i.e. based on purely technical criteria and on the quality of the services offered to the exclusion of all other considerations (unlike what happened at the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games, where the awarding of sports timekeeping was not subject to proper competitive bidding).
According to the Fédération Horlogère, the awarding of the timing of the Mexico Olympic Games to the Swiss watchmaking industry, following similar decisions taken for international sporting events in Brazzaville, Winnipeg, Kingston, Kuala-Lumpur and Montreal, confirms the supremacy acquired by the Swiss watchmaking industry in the field of sports timing and short time measurement.”

That's how this article against Seiko concludes, in an already electric context, which sounds as much like a frontal and unjustified attack on Seiko as an attempt to reassure itself about alleged Swiss supremacy.

It's worth pointing out that the comments made by the Fédération Horlogère at the time were completely untrue, since, as explained in the article “How Seiko entered the exclusive club of sports timing”, it was Seiko's technical superiority that allowed them to be the official timer of the Tokyo 1964 contract.

A horological conflict about the 1966 Asian Games. Thailand gives preference to Seiko after signing a contract with Omega

On August 30, 1965, L'impartial, a La Chaux-de-Fonds newspaper, devoted a detailed article to the situation, telling us that the story had turned into a diplomatic affair, as the Thai ambassador to Switzerland was summoned to the Federal Political Department after the Thai Foreign Minister had announced that he wished to give preference to Seiko for the Asian Games. A few days later, it was the Swiss ambassador in Bangkok who was received by the Minister of Foreign Affairs to present the contract signed by Omega and inform him that, if necessary, Switzerland would not hesitate to appeal to an international arbitration tribunal.

However, the organizers of the 5th Asian Games made their decision and “finally accepted the Japanese company's offers, which were far more advantageous”, as the article points out.

Watchmaking competition between Switzerland and Japan: who will win the Asian market?

After the Fédération Horlogère, this time it's Omega's turn to address its message directly in this article, arguing that Seiko obtained this contract thanks to its economic influence in South-East Asia, and denouncing “Japanese dumping methods” as the reason for bringing an international arbitration case into play.

The article concludes by criticizing the so-called “dubious Japanese methods”, whereas it opened with a more advantageous Japanese offer.

Swiss watchmaking to take new measures to counter japanese competition

Despite the various invectives and threats, another article in L'Impartial published in December 1965 on the watchmaking battle between Switzerland and Japan in Asia confirms that Omega did make counter-proposals, trying to match Seiko's offer, but with no success.

Then on March 4, 1966, the Gazette de Lausanne headlined in its economic and financial section, “Omega is deprived of timekeeping for the 5th Bangkok Games in favor of a Japanese watchmaking company”, while the Geneva newspaper reserved a small insert in its international politics page with the discreet title “Vème Jeux asiatiques de Bangkok, Le chronométrage unilatéralement retiré à une maison Suisse” (“Vth Asian Games in Bangkok, Timekeeping unilaterally withdrawn from a Swiss company”). In its watchmaking column, L'Impartial headlines “Grave éviction au profit du Japon” (Serious eviction in favor of Japan), while L'Express announces that “Timekeeping for the 5th Asian Games in Bangkok is unilaterally withdrawn from a Swiss company by the organizers”.

The articles explain that on March 2, 1966, the final decision to award the Asian Games to Seiko was taken by its organizers... following Omega's refusal to share timekeeping with Seiko!

So, despite Omega's counter-proposals and the proposal to share the event with Seiko, and despite threats of international arbitration, it will indeed be Seiko that will be in charge of deploying its technological innovations and timekeeping solutions for the 5th Asian Games, thanks to the more advantageous offer that had already been on the table several months earlier.

Everything is an excuse to justify Omega's reaction: Seiko is outbidding and dumping, they appeal to the “Olympic spirit”, they explain that the timing of international events is too complex to be shared, that sharing the event with Seiko offers Omega no “technical assurance”, they criticize Seiko for having embarrassed Thailand, and they even go so far as to say that technical, legal or fairness considerations were not taken into account by the organizers!

The blame is laid at the door of both Seiko and the organizers, but at no point is there any question of Omega and its inadequate counter-proposals, which clearly do not allow the Biel-based manufacturer to align itself with the Tokyo-based company's proposals.

M Rajamani, 400m womens

The Bangkok Games went off without a hitch, with two models of wristwatches sold especially for the occasion with the Games logo engraved on the case back, and many other derivative products. Seiko remained timekeeper of the Asian Games until 1994, and also timed dozens of other major international competitions.

Credit: Cedlamontre on montrespourtous.org

Credit: badaxjava on WatchUSeek

Credit : OLD MAN Secret vintage watches on Facebook

The conflict between Seiko and Omega in the late 60s is also another opportunity to see how the Swiss press dealt with Japanese watchmaking issues. Only articles written by people with first-hand experience of the Japanese watchmaking industry warn of the real threats posed by Japanese competition (as in the article “Has Swiss watchmaking lost a battle?”).

Beyond the deafening silence on Japanese innovations, the rest is made up almost entirely of articles that are at best disparaging, at worst untrue, about Seiko and Japanese industry. Another striking example of this biased media treatment is the alleged industrial espionage affair that saw Switzerland once again attempt to undermine Japanese industry in the early 70s, again without success... But that's a story for another day!

Here are extracts from Seiko's internal publications about the Bangkok Asian Games. Many thanks to Anthony Kable of Plus9Time for this valuable documentation!

Seiko Sales 11 and 12 from 1966 (slide for more)

Suwa Seikosha internal magazine, 1966

Suwa Seikosha internal magazine, 1967 (slide for more)