Shinola, Cheerios, and Waterfowl Combine for One Wacky Watch Debut

By Karen Dybis | October 07, 2026

If you look at Shinola’s new advertising and wonder, “What the duck were they thinking,” then you get a bit of what the Detroit-based watch company was going for with its latest product campaign.

Shinola on Oct. 6 released its new Duck Automatic watch with two Miyota movements, a first for the brand. Three styles feature the Miyota 9015 with approximately 42 hours of power; the fourth expression is powered by the new Miyota 9085, which provides about 80 hours of power reserve. Prices range from $895 for the base Duck Automatic to $1,095 for the Duck Automatic 9085 watch.

Its “playful cultural campaign,” as Shinola calls it, stars writer and Love Island USA: Aftersun cohost Tefi Pessoa, Subway Takes host and cocreator Kareem Rahma, rapper and internet personality NEMS, and content creator Benton McClintock in various lake-inspired moments—with a duck. Yes, like the waterfowl.

Shinola duck subway — Subway Takes host Kareem Rahma gets out of the train and into the water in Shinola’s duck-centric watch campaign.

But that’s not all. Shinola added a Cheerios partnership for what it describes as an ultra-limited edition of its venerable breakfast food. The two will produce fewer than 100 Duck Watching Snack boxes, which will be available to select buyers—including the first 50 Duck automatic purchasers at the Windup Watch Fair later this month.

The bewildering yet beguiling campaign is built around a singular question: What if we stopped trying to make every minute productive? Shinola said it hopes to make people who are always on think about touching grass—the Gen Z term for reconnecting with the physical world away from your smartphone or other devices—and watching ducks instead of working or acting busy all of the time.

“We’re all competing with an endless number of things for our time and attention. The idea behind this campaign is surprisingly simple: Sometimes the best use of your time is whatever you choose to do with it,” Shinola chief marketing officer Kevin Wertz said in a statement. “The Duck Automatic gave us a fun, unexpected way to tell that story while introducing an important new watch for the brand.”

Shinola Cheerios — *Shinola will offer fewer than 100 of these special-edition Cheerios boxes to people at its events, including those in Detroit and New York City.*

This is Shinola’s second major campaign with creative director Jonathan Bailey, who also managed its Runwell campaign this summer. His POV is to build Shinola’s love of craft, design, and Detroit along with a more personality-driven storytelling approach.

“We were interested in the tension between a beautifully engineered object designed to keep time and a campaign about occasionally forgetting about it altogether. That contradiction felt very Duck to us—considered, but never too precious,” Bailey said in a statement.

Shinola also will host duck-themed activations in October, including a duck-watching pop-up in Detroit and a New York Watch Week celebration with NEMS.

Top: Love Island USA: Aftersun cohost Tefi Pessoa stars in the new Shinola advertising campaign that highlights the Duck Automatic watch. (Photos courtesy of Shinola)