Omega watch:Omega’s Reminder: J. F. K. Wore One
John F. Kennedy has not been president for more than 45 years, but one of his presidential speeches has become an integral part of a marketing campaign to sell wristwatches.
A current print and television advertising campaign for the watchmaker Omega watch commemorating the 40th anniversary of the NASA’s Apollo mission features President Kennedy giving his “We choose to go to the Moon,” speech at Rice University in 1962, a year before his assassination and seven years before the Moon landing.
The campaign highlights the Omega watcha Speedmaster, the model approved by NASA in the 1960s as durable enough for space travel. It was supplied to astronauts, as “the first and only watch worn on the moon,” the text of the ads proclaim.
Rachel Day, a spokeswoman for the nonprofit group that runs the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum and retains rights to many of Mr. Kennedy’s images, said the group had granted permission to use his likeness in the ads, but declined to discuss what, if anything, Omega watch paid.
Ms. Day was unaware of any prior sanctioned use of Mr. Kennedy’s image for commercial purposes. The Omega ads show the Web site of the library, which is currently holding an exhibit on the Moon landing.
Omega, a subsidiary of the Swatch Group based in Switzerland, did not respond to messages seeking comment.
The watchmaker’s association with Mr. Kennedy began serendipitously. In 1960, a friend and political donor, Grant Stockdale, gave the then-senator an Omega Ultra Thin model, with the optimistic inscription “President of the United States John F. Kennedy from his friend Grant.” The watch could be seen in a photograph of Mr. Kennedy’s inauguration published in Life magazine. In 2005, Omega watchbought the watch for $350,000 at auction, and it is now in the Omega Museum in Biel, Switzerland.
Seeing a president as a pitchman has struck some as odd. On July 20, “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central showed footage from the commercial featuring Mr. Kennedy. Then, the host, Jon Stewart, referred to him as “that guy from the Omega watch ad.”