Sachin Tendulkar pads up for Audemars Piguet

ENDORSEMENT: The Swiss watchmaker has Formula One driver Rubens Barrichello and actor Michelle Yeoh rooting for it.

A watch has been missing from Sachin Tendulkar's endorsement portfolio and Swiss watchmaker Audemars Piguet now seems to be the choice. And if the company is to be believed, the choice it seems was made by the little master himself.

The niche manufacturer from the Vallée de Joux region of Switzerland already has names such as veteran Formula One driver Rubens Barrichello, actor Michelle Yeoh, golfer Vijay Singh and the Alinghi sailing team on its books, in addition to designing a watch for Arnold Schwarzenegger's charity and his movie Terminator 3.

The company says it follows a very unique endorsement model. In fact, even the word "endorsement" cannot be used, says Oliviero Bottinelli, chief executive officer, Singapore.

What it does is manufacture a limited theme series of watches and pays a determined royalty to the personality. It seems the personality has to take the step of approaching the company for a watch.

"That's how we do business. We'd rather have the person come to us because he has a passion for our watches. We have never paid any fancy sums for endorsements. Anyway, we are a small company and can't afford doing that," says Bottinelli.

The watch that Tendulkar will soon sport will be a customised Royal Oak Offshore. It is a variant of the Royal Oak which made its debut in Basel in 1972. It was acclaimed for its minimalist design.

It was also the first time a watch used steel and had an octagonal shape. "It was sold at the price of a gold watch," laughs Bottinelli.

The Tendulkar watch will stick to the minimalist theme. Its highlights will include a blue leather strap with tri-colour border stitches, the familiar steel bezel, white dial, blue numerals and Tendulkar's number 10 will be white with blue contours.

The three sub-counters in the dial will have their needles again in the tri-colour and the back cover will have embossed a batsman in action. A second version of the watch will be made with the difference being the bezel in Pink Gold.

A similar watch made for Rubens Barrichello was themed on a Formula One car and was priced at $30,000. Bottinelli says it will take much more to prise it away from a collector today.

Tendulkar's watch is expected to be priced at $35,000 for the steel bezel and "significantly more" for the Pink Gold Bezel. It is said the watch will be on sale in a couple of months.

Audemars Piguet is said to be among the last family-owned Swiss watch manufactures, still held by the the heirs of the founders Jules Audemars and Edward-August Piguet.

It consciously avoids the "bling quotient" in its designs but occasionally caters to it in watches such as the one worn by Vijay Mallya and R&B stars in the US.

It manufactures just about 27,000 watches in a year with the costliest being the Grand Complication, of which only five are made annually. It is crafted by the hands of a single watchmaker and is priced at about Singapore $1 million.