Goldsmiths doing goldsmith things..........

[Danpd]

The Veblen effect does not work on everyone. Many of us who are a little older and have an interest in Rolex developed our first love of the brand from a long running advertising campaign they had, in particular, full page adverts in National Geographic. The selling point was that they were engineered and designed for all these aspirational activities. Exploring jungles and deserts, polar expeditions, pioneering aviation feats, exploring the oceans, working on a nuclear submarine. The brand ambassadors were adventurers and heroes. This type of marketing creates a desirability that cannot get old or be ‘played out’.

In modern times, the adverts are more like standard jewellery adverts and do not inspire me at all. In fact I barely remember any of them. Tennis players and Hollywood actors - not very inspiring. Being expensive for the sake of being expensive is a complete turn off for me. And todays ‘must have’ fashion/veblen things can easily become tomorrows old, passé thing.

In the old advertising, they created a concept that people on these forums used to love talking about but is less seen now. The idea of a tool watch. Real tools cannot easily be reconciled with Veblen.

Anyway, I think the old advertising was great and started a popularity that has caught the attention of the next generation who have learnt they are great watches but not why they are. I also think Rolex have manoeuvred themselves into a situation that looks great in the short and mid term but has no long term viability. It will lead to a crisis where eventually they cannot keep inflating the price for ever as their sales volume will eventually drop into irrelevance. A new generation is growing up now who think of the brand in a quite different way and they will not be as loyal when the ever increasing brand fatigue takes full effect.

My passion for Rolex was exactly as you say, from the adverts in National Geographic and their association with extraordinary people and feats of human endeavour.

[DWK]

I don't, so I won't.












p.s. There isn't a current Rolex model I like anyway.

I have to agree about the game comment. I remember when the BLNR first came out and seeing one in my AD’s window and thinking that I preferred the 16710 Coke and the non-polished centre links. Since then, it has grown on me, but only at list, meaning, I won’t ever get a new one. I just don’t like the jubilee...

[julian2002]

Surely this is capitalism, a retailer selling a valuable commodity at a profit. If the retailer cannot source the commodity from the manufacturer it will buy and sell on the used market. As long as these things are being sold openly as second hand / used then I can see no issue that an AD is shoring up their business selling 2nd hand goods that due to market forces have a higher value than rrp.

Personally I find the whole cult of Rolex interesting in the same way as I find a tv serial interesting. Entertaining and full of drama but ultimately having little impact on my life as I find their products do not push my buttons other than the cachet of the Rolex name which I'm not going to pay over RRP for. The xmas dip is a classic 'poop and scoop', I fully expect a polar explorer 2 to be put up for sale at over 10k this year and blnrs to approach 20k.

Good luck with that.