Citizen Marks 100 with a Major Partnership

Basel--Citizen is celebrating its 100th anniversary by inking a partnership with one of the world’s most well-known companies: Disney.

Under its just-announced partnership with The Walt Disney Company, Citizen becomes the official timepiece of the Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista (Orlando), Florida and of Disneyland in Anaheim, California.

What this means is that the Citizen logo will be on all the clocks on Main Street U.S.A.—the stretch of street leading up to Cinderella’s castle—in the Magic Kingdom, on the Main Street U.S.A. clock at Disneyland, and on certain analog ride clocks (e.g., the Mad Tea Party). It also will be on select FastPass clocks in the parks.

Both Disneyworld and Disneyland will be selling Citizen watches with designs exclusive to the parks, as well as limited-edition watches produced for certain Marvel movies.

Citizen confirmed it will have additional licenses for Disney watches that can be sold outside the parks through its network of retailers, though no further details are available at this time.

At an interview conducted at the Baselworld show, Jeffrey Cohen, president of Citizen Watch America, said this is the first time a collaboration of this extent has been done in the watch category.

“It really positions Citizen as a leader in the industry,” he said, pointing out that Disney is selective about the brands with which it partners, mainly choosing large, world-class “power brands,” like Coca-Cola.

It was Disney that approached Citizen because the company wanted a global watch brand with staying power, not a brand that’s “hot for 10 minutes and goes away,” Cohen said, adding: “You see a lot of that in the industry.”

“They do their research in a big way on brands and what consumers feel about that brand.”

Citizen’s Disney partnership also makes the watch company the official timekeeper of runDisney race event weekends at Disney World in Orlando, and a sponsor of Disney Dreamers Academy, a four-day event for high schoolers held annually at Disney World.

For Marvel, the superhero-centric media company Disney acquired in 2009, Citizen is sponsoring the Marvel Minute and other digital content on Marvel.com this year, and will be a red carpet sponsor for the release of “Avengers: Infinity War,” which is set for April 27.

The watch company also will participate with Marvel in the San Diego Comic-Con this year.

The announcement of the Citizen-Disney partnership comes as Citizen celebrates its 100th anniversary.

“We sell America, we sell the people,” Cohen said.