The Swiss won small victories throughout the conflict, we owe the emergence of ETA to its restructuring by Ernst Thomke, who then took on Seiko in a competition to make the thinnest watch. Notwithstanding these wins, the financial losses were mounting quickly; Swiss banks even invested more than half a billion euros to try to quell the fire, to no avail. Desperate, the industry turned to Nicolas Hayek Sr., who ran a consulting firm at the time, and asked him to come up with a salvage plan. He proposed merging SSIH and ASUAG, two flailing watch groups, and concentrating their production efforts on ETA, allowing the brands to focus solely on design and marketing. With the arrival of Hayek, Thomke was also able to secure financing to launch the Swatch brand, and eventually, Nicolas Hayek’s vision became the Swatch Group. The advent of the Swatch brand marked a turning point in the strife, as the Swiss were able to successfully undercut the Japanese with their new products. Despite this effort, more than 95% of watches in production today are quartz. So, did we really win, or did we just survive?
As with any conflict, the question arises: what did we get out of it? Well, there are a few things to consider: high frequency quartz is pretty cool, the new Citizen Caliber 0100 is certainly something to look out for this fall. Most importantly however, the Quartz Attack showed the world who really supports the watch industry, collectors. It was our rallying cry, and we successfully repelled the foreign invaders. Unfortunately, most big watch brands have yet to recognize this phenomenon; their corporate structures forcing them to constantly seek growth, leaving collectors to grovel. Perhaps, by reminding these companies of who carried them when they couldn’t carry themselves, they’ll bring their focus back to what really matters, and stop worrying about things like horological smartwatches.