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.
I’m a writer. Happened to have a Rolex lying around – not mine, long story. Shame not to wear it. So I clipped the Rolex to a carabiner & hooked it to a belt loop. Once in a while, I’d swap it for a fake Rolex. Just for fun.
And what does the CEO of Goldman Sachs wear?
A Swatch.
My wife bought me a Tag Heuer.
When I brought it into a snooty Madison Avenue store for a new battery,
the salesperson referred to it as a “good starter watch.”
There might be something Rory is missing.
I spent a lot of years working on a giant bank account.
I became friendly with the bank’s Senior Executive Vice President.
I had a lot of semiotic hurdles to clear.
I had to show him I “understood.”
And that I was creative.
Can’t have one without the other.
My sister in law bought me a Mondaine. I love it, and now just pay to get the straps replaced, the design is great. And you reminded me of the Braun exhibition which was just incredible, the simplicity in all the design – made it look so modern, clearly an inspiration for Mr. Ive. Your brilliant article also reminds me of not fitting in when it came to ‘dress down Friday’. I’d bought one suit as that was the dress code. On the first Friday that it came in, I came in casual wear. They pulled me to one side and said, ‘we meant smart casual’. I replied. ‘What’s that?’. ‘Chino’s and a shirt’ – I gave a funny look and said, ‘ah, ok, I’ll wear a suit then because I don’t own those, and don’t really get paid enough to buy them’. As everyone else then started being more casual they had to let me continue coming in ‘scruffy’.
I like to signal that I don’t have the time for any of this tail feathering. /S
The watch caste system in the business world is a little too “American Psycho” for my tastes.
A £10 Casio digital watch is the way forward; a perfect bit of kit that says ‘I just need to know what time it is’.
Or what about not wearing a watch at all? That would be nuts!
Do you want to imply that within universities, media, banking, marketing and advertising there are only males fitting in?
Dave’s writing about what he knows. I’m sure there’s a handbag code for females in similar circumstances, which is a very male way of looking at it. Long ago, one colleague boasted that her husand bought her a Gucci handbag, which demonstrated his wealth and devotion and her desirability. Another bought her own, which demonstrated her independence and personal success. Maybe if you were Anna Wintour, you didn’t have one, but an assistant instead. Maybe Kristina can explain.
It’s all signalling, and such signals as a watch are actually quite helpful to understand what others want their peers to think of them, and what status hierarchies they think themselves a part of. Having the most expensive watch that you can just about reasonably afford signals power through money – appropriate for people on the corporate ladder who want to be CEOs. Having the tasteful watch by the award winning designer signals that you have rarefied taste and is appropriate for those who want to be taken seriously by other advertising creatives. It would be an actively bad career move and could seed mistrust, if everyone else at your restaurant table has a Rolex.