The Rolex Effect

Just for kicks, ask 10 people to name an expensive watch - I’d be willing to bet that nine of them will say “Rolex!” faster than Lindsay Lohan cycles through rehab. And if you sat them in front of a palate of logos, that little crown would score like Nike and Coca-Cola in terms of world-wide brand recognition and cachet. Considering that Rolex produces and sells close to one million watches per year but is still synonymous with exclusivity is nothing short of remarkable.

But this incredible brand awareness didn’t happen overnight. Rolex’s marketing success comes from consistency. The product, logo, quality, and pricing has remained the same for over fifty years. Well-planned, long-term sponsorship, advertising, and distribution policies allow Rolex to precisely control where and how their message is delivered. The slow-and-steady approach obviously works; despite a recent price increase, millions of fanatical, brand-loyal customers buy them as fast as they can make them.

But it goes deeper than that. People all over the world crave the feeling they get when they strap on their Rolex. Wearing the Daytona makes Bob feel confident at the board meeting. Bob’s wife and her diamond Date-Just fit in at the country club luncheon. And Bob’s loser son picks up skanks sporting the TT Sub. Either way, it’s what I’ll call The Rolex Effect, and it’s the reason behind Rolex’s phenomenal success.

Successful brands capitalize on The Rolex Effect. Think Starbucks, BMW, and Apple. At the end of the day, they’re not selling you a product; you’re buying their emotion.

"The Greatest Ball-Sport Dog & Pony Show on Earth"

Firstly, I'd like to send out a hearty "Thanks!" for checking this out - by the time you're done reading I'll have either: a) made you laugh, b) offended you, or c) wholly entertained you. I'm hoping for the latter. Let me know what you think.

Some thoughts on the "Greatest Ball-Sport Dog & Pony Show on Earth", otherwise known as The Super Bowl. Personally, I don't 'get it', although there’s a lot of things these days that I 'don't get'. Parking your "RV" on the infield grass then climbing on its roof to ‘git a gander’ at Dale Jr. play 500 laps of left-turn bumper cars immediately comes to mind as something I certainly don't 'get'.

But it doesn't really matter if I, you, or pretty much anyone you know 'gets it'. The Super Bowl's dick is so big that it has it's own zip code - you're stepping on it now and you don't even know it. I'm not sure there's a better known and more publicly anticipated segment of television and associated advertising in America than the annual Super Bowl extravaganza. The game draws ~ 93MM viewers; that’s 43% of all American TV-owning households and hits hundreds of demographics in millions of different markets, all in four hours of football broadcasting. (Side note to "I-Just-Watch-It-For-The-Commercials-Guy: you're a homo for wasting 4 hours of your Sunday. If you want to see ads, fire up Google Video about a minute into the post-game show.)

I digress. Any way you stack it, The Super Bowl is a Big Deal. And when companies are paying ~$2.5MM for thirty seconds of airtime, everybody expects advertising perfection.

So, what happened this year? Sales-Genie sucked. FedEx sucked. Believe it or not, (I didn’t) Carlos Mencia is even less funny hocking Bud Light than he is whining about why it sucks to be a Mexican these days. And, quite simply, GM keeps building ugly cars that people just don’t want to buy.

I feel especially bad for Garmin. I mean, what the fuck even was that? If I was them (I'm not), I would have run 3 fifteen-second shorts instead of a single 30, featuring a GPS-equipped Donald Trump navigating his way out of dangerous situations. He escapes Rosie's dressing-room, creeps unnoticed through the packed set of The View, and finally returns to his office to safely fire off a couple more pieces of Trump’s Signature 'Fatass-Hatemail'. I would bet all of Oprah’s money that commercial would have gone platinum. Worst-case scenario, they could have at least fallen back on their holiday "give-ah, give-ah, give-ah Gar-min!" jingle. With these kinds of options on the table, it’s beyond me how they ended up with erector-set robots shooting faggy, groin-mounted laser beams at each other.

When airtime costs ~$77,000/second, every single one of those ads should have been exceptional; considering the dollars spent the end product was rather embarrassing. And not like “I had a dream that I woke up naked in a classroom” embarrassing. No, embarrassing like missing your Masters-winning putt while you watch Phil Mickelson jump out of the stands, shoot you the big double-electric bird, and call you a ‘choke-artist hack’ on national TV embarrassing.

But even the better spots were still pretty dim. Budweiser has unquestionably mastered the use of cute animals to sell beer. Nissan’s Titan commercial was exciting, engaging, and extremely appropriate for the US market. K-Fed and Nationwide reset my definition of douche-bag. GoDaddy keeps banking on sex-appeal. It works, but God help them if that brunette gal decides that the pole is more her speed. Just in case, I’ll be buying a couple shares of RICK tomorrow.