Does advertisement work?

[Ruud Van Driver]

Originally Posted by steptoe

I can think of nothing worse than opening a magazine and seeing a full page colour advertisment of something that i owned.

I think being diagnosed as HIV positive might have a more detrimental effect on your day.

Originally Posted by greggsiam

I've never seen a Rolex ad.

What drug me in was the amazing history and legendary quality. Luxury products (or any product for that matter) that are not quality, just image and name do nothing for me.

If you have the mildest interest in tennis (I don't) or F1 (I do), then you can't fail to notice that Rolex are major sponsors. During Wimbledon and every F1 race, the name pops up everywhere. That's advertising. This F1 season, they showed a TT Daytona at the start of every ad break during the televised race programme.

Going slightly off topic, given that Rolex are a major sponsor of F1, I couldn't help noticing Lewis Hamilton rocking this enormous, black piece on his wrist. No idea what it was as, apart from Rolex, watches in general don't interest me much but I didn't recognise it as any Rolex I've ever seen. Given that Rolex sponsor the sport in a big way, I'd have thought there would have been some sort of agreement where the drivers had to sport a Rolex. Takes me back to when Ford used to sponsor a certain Boris Becker and they gave him a Cosworth. Not long after, he got done for speeding in his Porsche and Ford issued a statement saying that if he's going to get his collar felt for speeding, then he's supposed to get caught in his Cosworth.

Originally Posted by Im Lauf der Zeit

The appearances in early Bond movies probably sold countless Rolexes, and all for free.

Not sure if that was free. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong but I believe it's called 'product placement' or something. As an example, Apple would have paid for Denzel Washington to check messages on his iPhone during the movie Flight, or for the team at CTU to use iMacs in the first series of 24.