Chasing Horizons

Background

Citizen launched its 2014 flagship model, the Eco-Drive Satellite Wave F100 at Baselworld2014. It was the watch with the fastest satellite signal reception speed in the world. No matter where you were, it adjusted to the current time zone in just three seconds.

Idea

To demonstrate the watch's unique ability, Chasing Horizons was designed as an ambitious "race against time". Citizen's first global campaign challenged photographer Simon Roberts and ex-NATO pilot Jonathan Nicol to chase the sunset across the earth's time zones in an attempt to live in the same hour for as long as humanly possible.

In a precisely planned window of time during late February, when the days were still long but before the sun no longer set, Simon and Jonathan set off from Reykjavik in Iceland. They moved to a new time zone each hour with Simon capturing the moment with a photo of the setting sun, while the Eco-Drive Satellite Wave adjusted back to ensure they were living in the same hour.

The team managed to keep up with the sunset for one night before landing at their final destination in the Arctic Circle. The mission had resulted in a completely unique series of sunset imagery, taken at exactly the same hour and same minute in the same day.

This photography was used in global print and digital advertising. The short film by acclaimed documentary director Tristan Patterson, a story about people fooling time and stealing one night from the planet, was used for TV and online content.

Results

The campaign was given additional traction by Creative Review's Ads of the Week, and featured in ADWEEK's digital and printed versions. Chasing Horizons was also picked by Discovery Channel's "Daily Planet" show.

The unique user view of the global website reached 146,255, the page view reached 313,092, and the average session time was 01:18. The films and images continued appearing in major sporting events and exhibitions by Citizen and stores around the world.

Our Thoughts

I just love the idea of trying to fly against the rotation of the earth to stay as long as possible in exactly the same moment of time. Quite apart from the fact that it’s a nicely appropriate idea for a tecchy sort of watch, it’s a captivating idea in itself, marrying time travel and science with great photography. That’s the thing about branded content. You have to have an idea people will be sufficiently interested in to want to go to the website and find out more. Ideas that can attract an audience are infrequent. This is one that delivers.