Ah, the wonders of advertising.
Truly brilliantly evil men and women, who scheme up all sorts of ideas to sell us their products.
When I was in college in KL, the Casio G-shock series (now, still?) was hot. No, it's not a vibrator for women.

It's a watch. And not just any watch, mind you. It was water-resistant. Up to 200 meters underwater. Though I can't imagine what I'd be doing down at that depth. Might be useful if the mafia chained my feet to bricks and dumped me overboard. "Ooo, lookie here... I can tell my exact time of death...".
The G-shock was indestructible. My friends proved it once, when they threw my watch off the 2nd floor balcony. And very very large. And very bright. They came in pink and red and blue and green. I had a yellow one.
And the watch was also popular. In fact, it was supposed to be huge in America. The magazine ads all had Caucasian chicks and hunks in skimpy swimwear wearing it. Kinda like how those cigarette ads fool you into thinking that if you smoke Marlboros, you'll be surrounded by dozens of blonde 36D blonde bombshells with cowboy hats.
I found out what you saw on ads weren't always true. When I was in medschool in north America:

"What is that on your wrist??" It's a watch. A G-shock.
"A what???" Never mind.
"Does it do anything?" It tells me the time.
"I mean, besides that?" Well, you can make phonecalls with it. And pull up recipes. And when you had an itch on a hard-to-reach spot of your butt, this could scratch it for you too. And the blue light repels vampires and zombies and Thai ah-kuas.

After a while, I got tired of the questions. And the stares. I realized that people weren't admiring me and wanting to have my babies. They were looking at me with a sympathetic look. Like I was the short, ugly boy who couldn't afford a proper watch, and wore a sundial to school instead.
I still have my watch. It's sitting in my closet. Having been in north America since 1998, I have yet to see people sporting G-shocks here. I'll probably put it on when I next expec to be run over by a steamroller.