The 40-Year History of the Casio G-SHOCK

When you think of Japanese watchmaking, Seiko’s often the first name to spring to mind and their very particular style of accessible Prospex durability. Or perhaps Grand Seiko’s gorgeous finishing and innate elegance. Watchmaking giant Citizen also have their fair share of timepieces scattered across the aesthetic spectrum. And yet, in certain cliques, there’s only one Japanese watch that really matters: the Casio G-SHOCK. And despite being a modern icon of big, bold style, the G-SHOCK has a more in-depth history than you might expect.

About a decade after Japan’s Casio started making wristwatches in the first place, they debuted the first G-SHOCK in 1983. The purpose of the Casio G-SHOCK was to have a “gravity-resistant” timepiece that would not break if it was dropped. In fact, an original mandate that Casio’s ‘Team Tough’ (the internal development team responsible for the invention of the G-SHOCK) put on the product was that it should survive a three-story drop.

That was just the beginning of what G-SHOCK would become, and a story I recently explored in 40 Years Of G-SHOCK, a book that I recently wrote for Casio and was published by Rizzoli. In this article, I’d like to share with you some of the highlights of that 40-year history.

What Casio was trying to solve with the G-SHOCK was one of timekeeping’s greatest enemies – violent vibrations. Humans had long ago created a way to measure passing time, but the quest to perfect the devices we use for such purposes has been ongoing. Casio made its mark by providing the world with a new level of worry-free timekeeping in an extremely affordable package. Ironically, what they are mostly known for are fun, colourful watches that kids like to wear, and often still do as adults. What I will discuss in a moment is how kids especially, were instrumental in the G-SHOCK becoming the world icon that it is today and the history it has now.

Casio however, was not thinking along those lines. Interestingly enough, the company didn’t seem to have a clear target for who would wear the G-SHOCK watch. What was more important to the company’s engineers was making a useful tool that solved the shock-resistance problem at hand. The prevailing wisdom at the time in Japan was one of great optimism and experimentation when it came to anything related to consumer electronics. What type of person might purchase your product wasn’t as important as how impressive or innovative your product was.

If you invent something cool, customers will find it and buy it. At least that was the prevailing hope at Casio’s headquarters after they finally finished developing the G-SHOCK. In Japan, the G-SHOCK initially fell flat on its face. Success for the product family was anything but immediate. It was probably at this time when G-SHOCK’s inventor Mr. Kikuo Ibe came up with his now-popular slogan of “Never Never Never Give Up.”

What Casio didn’t seem to consider in 1983, was that its black, resin armour-clad model DW-5000C G-SHOCK watches were the polar opposite of the sleek, small, metal watches that were popular at watch stores at the time. Even though the technical characteristics of Casio’s new shock-resistant digital watches were impressive, consumers in Japan at the time didn’t take to them.

Casio responded by trying to market G-SHOCK watches to roadside construction workers. Casio had difficulty thinking beyond jackhammer operators when imagining who might have an immediate need for a product like the G-SHOCK. Given that people at the time were so accustomed to watches that could break if they fell, there was little built-in market demand for shock-resistant timepieces.

Casio were not perturbed. At this stage in the history of G-SHOCK, they knew they had something special. Not only was the G-SHOCK a truly ground-breaking (some pun intended) product, but it also didn’t have any competition in the market. They figured that anyone who had experienced a broken watch in the past would quickly come to understand the appeal of their invention. For the first few years of development, Casio focused on making the G-SHOCK not only shock-resistant but also resistant to environmental contaminants such as water, dust, and mud.

A hallmark of all G-SHOCK watches in due course would not only be a laundry list of functional features but also a list of various resistances. They didn’t even offer their first colour variation until 1987 – and that was a G-SHOCK in yellow. Colourfulness – which now broadly defines the diversity of G-SHOCK character – was not a major facet of the product family until the mid-1990s.

Since the beginning, Casio have operated a full-time testing facility in Tokyo where they evaluate and abuse their new and existing watches. Such a strong legacy of testing has allowed Casio to rapidly develop and improve even seemingly minor features. For example, the now longstanding MUDMAN collection of G-SHOCK watches is typified by pushers that can be depressed (over and over again) in water or mud, without allowing any of the contaminants to enter the watch.

Casio continues this strong legacy today as it never seems to rest on its laurels. When you have a company that is run by engineers – as opposed to marketing or salespeople – you find a corresponding drive to prioritise iterative product development above all else. This corporate virtue has allowed Casio to turn a popular wristwatch into an entire product universe.

I’ll now return to the part of the story when Casio was struggling to sell G-SHOCK watches at home in Japan. Never really making a serious impact on the domestic market, Casio’s executives set their hopeful sights on America. Surely the more open-minded and outdoorsy American consumer would appreciate the G-SHOCK in a way that a more traditional consumer base in then Japan might not – at least that was the perception.

Unfortunately, Casio’s sales representatives found similar objections from watch store owners in America, as they did back home in Japan. Jewellers were often aghast at the idea of selling a black resin watch in their luxury showcases fitted with mostly metal items. The traditional places to sell watches were not going to be appropriate for these non-traditional watches. Even in America.

Not giving up, Casio decided to place G-SHOCK watches in the types of retail locations that would accept them, even if they were not where people were accustomed to buying fine watches. The two types of stores that Casio did find success in were drugstores and sporting goods stores. This probably didn’t excite Casio too much at first, until they realized a very important demographic who did shop at these stores – kids.

Kids who in America at the time were becoming very interested in a new breed of sports such as skateboarding, BMX biking, surfing, rollerblading, and snowboarding. The sporting goods stores that sold the equipment for these activities also sold G-SHOCK watches alongside them. It turned out that Casio’s reasonable prices, contemporary designs, approachable functionality, and later, fun colours made their watches the perfect and practical accessory for the sports of the 1990s. A late 20th century revolution in the history of G-SHOCK.

It wasn’t just people who skated or surfed that helped put Casio on the global map. More importantly, it was rapid product adoption by mainstream consumers who paid attention to influential fashion media (that at the time was obsessed with youth sports culture and what they were wearing). Casio had a near monopoly on being worn by kids doing dangerous activities outside. Casio were quick to catch on, and by the mid-1990s were already partnering with sports groups and personalities.

This also began Casio’s important legacy of producing special or limited-edition collaboration watches, a trend that many watchmakers have since adopted. In 1995 Casio debuted special watches for the Surfrider Foundation, which were followed by additional models that focused on the worlds of skateboarding and snowboarding. By the early 2000s, the relationships that Casio developed continued to evolve, and also moved into the music and pop culture space. Casio made the wise decision not only to market their name with sports organisations and personalities, but also to release new watches that commemorated those relationships.

These numerous collaborations resulted in a large variety of G-SHOCK products on the market that Casio could manufacture relatively cheaply. This was because Casio cleverly reused manufacturing moulds they had already produced, only with new colours and cosmetic differences. Casio have created a unique technology company culture where both legacy and fresh innovations are concurrently manufactured – leading today to overall increases in efficiency and cost-savings for consumers.

The 1990s proved to be an interesting inflection point for Casio. On the one hand, they enjoyed remarkable success as being the ‘it’ watch of the youth, fashion, and music community. On the other hand, it was often unclear in what direction to develop products, let alone what consumers might want tomorrow. Casio once again was faced with the dilemma of trying to resolve an uncertain future.

Casio’s eventual answer was to simply do it all. G-SHOCK could and should be anything. It could sometimes be an entry-level watch, and at other times be a lavish luxury item. It could be a serious survival tool, or it could be a fun urban accessory. It could be the peak of technology, but it could also be a comfortable nostalgic treat. It could also be any size, any colour, and any theme. Casio’s second-half strategy for the last 20 years of the 40-year history of G-SHOCK was very much to “shock the world” with their presence.

Consumers benefitted because it meant that Casio developed in all possible directions. Casio not only continued to manufacture the technology it invented in the 1980s, but it was also developing brand-new materials, electronic hardware modules, and functions that a watch can perform. I will mention two of them, materials and antenna-based technologies.

While the core tenants of how a G-SHOCK watch should perform have not changed much over the history of G-SHOCK, Casio have translated the G-SHOCK into many forms and experimented with a galaxy of materials. One of the most interesting materials Casio has continually focused on (aside from resin plastics) is metal. Casio never really recovered from the early push-back by retailers that felt G-SHOCK products did not deserve to be alongside more traditional wristwatches. Less than a decade after G-SHOCK launched, the Team Tough project leader – Mr. Ibe (who still works at Casio today) – launched the ambitious MR-G, or ‘Mr. G’ metal G-SHOCK concept.

Since then, Casio have studiously developed metal G-SHOCK watches that are just as durable as their resin-cased cousins. Perhaps more important for Casio, the metal G-SHOCK watch mission succeeded. Not only do metal G-SHOCKs offer the same performance as the average resin-cased product, but they finally helped open the door at many fine retailers who at long last showcase Casio G-SHOCK watches alongside more traditionalist timepiece products.

The strength of Japanese watchmakers historically hasn’t only been to offer excellent values, but also technological innovation in the form of miniaturisation. This was particularly relevant for Casio as part of their quest to make watches that were increasingly worry-free. To the engineers at Casio, such a motivation compelled them to not only design watches that didn’t break, but also watches that were accurate each time you went to read the time.

The ability to miniaturise antennas and receiver systems was important to the history of G-SHOCK and furthered this goal by allowing the company to incorporate atomic clock radio signal-controlled movements into G-SHOCKs by the year 2000 with the release of the ANTMAN. The system updates the watch’s time with that of a highly accurate terrestrial atomic clock, which emits the correct time via radio waves. Casio later combined this technology with TOUGH SOLAR charging, and even developed ‘connected’ G-SHOCK watches designed to receive signals from GPS satellites.

Expertise in low-power, small-sized antennas paved the way for Casio’s most current take on the connected watch. Even though Casio have produced modern smartwatches, the company’s broader strategy is to incorporate today’s device communication technologies such as Bluetooth, with the features and wearing experience that fans have come to enjoy and expect from a G-SHOCK.

Accordingly, many of today’s latest Casio watches represent a satisfying hybrid of a tried-and-true worry-free wearing experience, with a meaningful connection to your smartphone or other ubiquitous devices. Casio’s wise approach in the smart device era has been to integrate with these products as opposed to competing with them. The approach appears to be working. We already gave 40 years of G-SHOCK history and there could easily be another 40 years of G-SHOCK to look forward to.

More details at G-SHOCK.

​Oracle Time 

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