Brand Story to Watch: Passages by Egard

It caught my eye, a simple tweet from William Shatner about a watch he’d helped design called Passages.

It was being crowd funded on Indiegogo and featured asteroid dust.

Like most Canadians, I’ve always had a soft spot for Shatner.

And it had asteroid dust!

But I’d never heard of the watch maker, Egard, so I dug in a bit more.

And what I found was a son, Ilan Srulovicz, who had wanted to honour his father, Peter, by building a watch, the two launching a company together after that in 2012.

Long story short, my Dad got a Passages watch for Christmas, a gift from my sister (who coincidentally had seen the same tweet) and me.

Why we love it:

• A good story brings the love with it. And this one is so clearly nurtured by people who have put a great deal of thought and care into what the watch stands for, it is infectious
• The celebrity tie-in is thoughtful, logical and meaningful, unlike so many celebrity endorsements.
• The watch even embodies some of the magic of the story. Did I mention it has asteroid dust?
• The father-son storyline makes it accessible and immediately relateable to anyone who has a dad or child that they love.
• The themes and language of their brand storytelling transcend the product and remind us of the passage of time and the wonder of the world, making the watch feel more valuable and special.

The crowd funding campaign surpassed its goal of $75,000 almost ten times over. It helps that Mr. Shatner is a cultural icon but he fits so well with the brand story, it doesn’t feel forced the way so many traditional celebrity endorsements do.

And it’s fun to see cultural icons like Shatner adopt crowd-funding. Other celebrities are too with varying degrees of success.

There wasn’t a lot spent on marketing. There is nothing slick about the site, the campaign and definitely not about the videos.

But this brand story goes back to basics, highlighting points of connection that so many of us share: a loving relationship with our fathers, an awareness of the passage of time and of the importance of moments.

That’s what makes this a brand story to watch.