A friend of mine once told me about a gold Rolex she bought for her fiancée.
She knew he’d always wanted one, so she gave it to him on his birthday.
That evening they went out to dinner with lots of his friends, all senior directors in media companies.
As she looked along the table, she saw why he’d always wanted one.
All the other senior media directors had their arms on the table, all with the cuffs of their suits pulled back to reveal identical gold Rolex watches.
All showing that they fitted in, that they all belonged, they’d made it.
My friend laughed when she told me that story, she thought it was really funny.
I was reminded of this by an article Rory Sutherland posted, a guide to the hierarchy of watches in investment-banks on Wall Street.
It’s meant to be humorous, but like all humour it’s based in truth.
The guide begins with advice for interns: you want to be noticed but not show off, so you should start by wearing an Omega Seamaster (£5,600).
If you are made a permanent employee, you’ll become an analyst and should upgrade your watch to the Rolex Submariner (£8,500).
When you are made an associate, you should signal this to clients by wearing a Blancpain Aqua Lung (£18,500).
Eventually, if you’re promoted to vice-president, you will need to let people know by wearing a Vacheron Constantin (£125,000).
If you become a director, you need to display a Jaeger Le Coultre (£215,000).
And if you finally make it to managing director, you’ll be expected to signal it by wearing a Patek Phillipe (£485,000).
This is hierarchical straight-line thinking, just the sort of thing you learn at university. Always look for the right answer and stick to the rules, the most important thing of all is to fit in.
Universities teach predictability, there are no marks for unpredictability, you’re seen as a loose cannon.
To paraphrase Rory Sutherland on this kind of thinking: it’s safer to get the wrong answer by conventional thinking than to get the right answer by unconventional thinking.
Marketing types mainly went to university so they tend to think this way, creative types on the other hand usually didn’t, they usually went to art school.
As you can imagine, the rules are completely different, no one at art school would be caught dead with any of those watches on their wrists.
Those watches would signal that you were an unthinking slave to convention, totally dependent on other people’s opinions.
At university, the accent is on being right, at art school the accent is on being interesting.
Consequently, far from fitting in you want the opposite, you want to stand out.
Creatives don’t want what’s safe, they want what’s interesting, what’s unusual.
Take Bob Brooks for instance, he was one of the most successful commercials directors in London, 3-years-running Bob’s production company won the Palme d’Or at Cannes.
(Beating Ridley Scott’s company and everyone else in the world).
Bob could have worn any gold watch going, but that would have been crass, that would have shown he had no taste.
So Bob actually wore a Mondaine watch based on the minimalist Swiss railway clock, it only cost £180 but it’s in New York’s MOMA permanent collection.
Simone Micheli was a very stylish art director in our department, he was English/Italian and could have chosen any expensive watch.
Instead, he went to an Army/Navy surplus outlet in Mile End to get a Seiko NATO officer’s watch, with a canvas strap, costing £150.
Graham Fink was the Creative Director for all of Ogilvy S.E. Asia, he could have bought the most expensive watch made, what he wore was a LEGO watch costing £80.
I had a Braun watch (Braun make electric razors, kettles, and radios) it only cost £110 but it was designed by Dieter Rams, the design-hero of Jonathan Ives, who made all Steve Jobs’ best Apple products.
Of course, all this talk about watches sounds very trivial, and on its own it is.
But it’s indicative of something more important.
Creative types think carefully about what they’re wearing, but they aren’t signalling their status for other people’s approval.
Rory’s article reminded me of something we confront every day, something we never acknowledge but it has a definite effect on the advertising that actually runs.
It’s the difference between the creative types, who do the work, and the marketing people who approve the work.
Rory said:
“Creative people have a fear of the obvious, but they must sell their work to people who have a love of the obvious.”
Marketing thinking is all about fitting in, creative thinking is all about standing out.
I leave it to you to work out for yourself which sort of advertising is more likely to be effective in the real world.