At Omega we are particular; we are very selective with what we do. We understood very quickly that to maintain an incredibly strong brand you have to behave in a certain way. You have to have authenticity. So, on the product side, if we have a master chronometer, for instance, we work very hard to make it an excellent machine.

This is what our customers expect, and they are very sensitive to this question of authenticity. They understand the symbolic value of an Omega, and they want us to stay true to certain values of quality and aesthetics.

Therefore, when it comes to choosing the ambassadors we work with, we have to bear all this in mind. And we have to understand that at the base of any successful luxury brand – and by definition we are one of those, because of the price and quality of our products – there is a strong sense of coherence and continuity.

Our ambassador programme needs, therefore, to be as genuine and consistent as the development and evolution of, say, a co-axial movement. Thus, when we engage with a charismatic person who we feel embodies aspects of Omega, we are looking to a long-term relationship. If you chop and change the faces of your brand then the consumer will rightly assume that you are having a series of inauthentic relationships.

Take Cindy Crawford, who has been a face of our women’s watches for over 20 years now. Almost a quarter of a century ago, Omega was not the well-known brand it is today. But she understood back then that it had the kind of values that she could relate to and we started a relationship with her, and today she is still one of our family.

With Eddie Redmayne, the process was more recent, but I think you can tell a lot about how we think and our philosophy in how we formed that relationship. I first met Eddie simply as someone who we liked and felt would be the sort of person we’d like to have a relationship with. We lent him a watch for a film he was doing and discovered that he used to borrow his father’s Omega when he was younger.

You know, sometimes in my job you meet someone with a public profile and when you get talking to them about what you do it can click. With Eddie, I remember realising that he was not pretending to be interested – a chat turned into an hour discussing watches, and he spoke about coming to visit us at the factory in Switzerland.

This led to us asking him to be an ambassador for the Globemaster, and now he is the face of our Aqua Terra campaign. It has taken several years to get to this point in a very organic way. And because of this it feels very natural and authentic.

Eddie is, of course, a wonderful fit for the values of Omega. He is charismatic and young and supremely talented – I was absolutely delighted when he won his Oscar. Eddie appeals to the younger generation, he is somebody that inspires people and will continue to inspire a lot of people for many years to come.

The same is true of all our ambassadors. We enter into relationships with them all – with George Clooney, Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig and all the sports stars we work with, like Jessica Ennis-Hill – with a view to having an association with them over a long period of time, as they develop as people and as we develop as a brand.

What’s really interesting now is that some of our ambassadors have children who are following in their parents’ footsteps with us. When I met Kaia and Presley Gerber, Cindy’s kids, for example, I felt that here was another way to demonstrate continuity and speak to the next generation in a real way. So, I simply said: ‘Come and join us, just like your mother did all those years ago.’ As with Eddie, it felt like a totally natural step.

Some might call these two young people ‘influencers’. But for me, all our ambassadors are influencers. You don’t have to have a blog and have 50 million followers to be an influencer. You just need to be someone who people are interested in and who stands for certain values and qualities. Cindy is an influencer. Eddie is an influencer because of what he has done in his movies.

Sometimes people ask me whether I believe in the continuing relevance of ambassadors for brands, and I always reply that I do, if you do it right. I do think that in today’s world, when we have so little time and are constantly bombarded with messages about products, it is important to find ways of making an emotional connection with a consumer. Of course, in the end, the product has to deliver and do that itself – and at Omega we are lucky to have really good timepieces. But however good a product is, people always appreciate something to refer to, let’s call it an emotional testimony.

But as I said before, this only works if it is seen as genuine. In fashion advertising, for example, the face of a brand will often change all the time. That for me has less value. And in any case, as a watchmaker we are not in fashion – we are in the style business; we like to be on trend, but we are not fashion.

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