‘Only great marketing is needed to make a company successful’– these are the words of an entrepreneur who rightfully succeeded in building one of the most renowned brands in the world. Yes, these are the words of Hans Wilsdorf, founder of Rolex. From being an orphan to creating one of the most dynamic, yet unique brands in the world, the story of this entrepreneur and his Disney world is quite intriguing and mysterious.
Rolex is a watch designer and manufacturer that had its emanation from Germany, but now its headquarters is in Geneva, Switzerland. Its founder, Hans Wilsdorf, launched this company to create subtle and elegant watches for the general people. Back in the 1910s after the World War 1 era, it was seen that people had been divided into 2 groups based on the choice of wristwatches. Only women were seen in society to wear wristwatches and men had pocket watches.
Many reasons were theorized to answer such a dilemma. Mainly men at that time didn’t want to wear wristwatches because they thought wristwatches didn’t generate the feat of masculinity. Another issue that should be looked upon is the fact that at that period, no company or designer wasn’t capable of perfectly designing a watch so small having precise calculations of time with its mechanics. As a result, it was seen that most of the wristwatches had errors while calculating time, maybe it was a gap of multiple seconds or maybe even minutes.
Wilsdorf noticed this scenario with quite perseverance and passion. He predicted that pocket watches would be extinct sooner or later because the repetition of pulling up a watch from a pocket every time to see the time is annoying and ridiculous. Also for a busy man like Wilsdorf, this was quite hassling too. He said that sooner or later, someone is going to perfect the design of a wristwatch working smoothly without any errors. So he along with his brother-in-law started working on it and after much work, he became confident enough to launch his company Rolex.
Rolex only featured passive, unique, and patented products to show off their class and quality. The hero product of Rolex at that time was ‘Rolex Oyster- Perpetual’, which was the first ever wristwatch to be waterproof and even self-binding. The reason for this particular product to be so famous consists of mainly 2 reasons: Genius Marketing and High-Quality Product design. And the reasons carry different stories as well.
Wilsdorf heard of a woman named Mercedes Gleitze, who was a professional swimming athlete. She had a grudge to swim in a water body between France and England, as people mocked about her athleticism. Wilsdorf requested her to wear a Rolex Oyster on her neck while swimming. She agreed and swam through, covering 2/3rd of the water body. Instead of her achievement, people were mainly focusing on that Rolex watch, which was in absolutely perfect condition regardless of that aqueous environment. This marketing strategy made people believe that Rolex watches are waterproof. The other story covers the patented feature of the self-binding of that watch, which was properly marketed with its brand logo.
Over the last decades, Rolex has done its branding representing its high status of reputation. As they have been revolutionary since the core of the revolution of the watch industry, their brand signifies a symbol of the greatness of pure artistry. And so, they represent an upper-class community, which makes their products so costly.
Apart from the realistic materialism factors of products and quality designing, Rolex follows the ‘Veblen Good’ Theory, which shows that more costly products result in more customers. Celebrities and famous athletes like Roger Federer, Brad Pitt, Neymar JR, Ronaldo, and even politicians like John F Kennedy and Winston Churchill were featured in different places wearing Rolex watches. This shows that having a Rolex signifies a person’s reputation, which Wilsdorf thought of from a very early stage.
The community ought to be very classy as Rolex maintains strict legacy rules about its unique marketing. There are also rumors that Rolex provides more than enough facilities to its premium customers for the sake of marketing and customer loyalty. Facilities include multiple flats, apartments or other expensive gifts which can be treated as a token of mutual correspondence.
Overall, Rolex cares very much about their customer community and the subtle legacy of their brand which they have been working very hard to maintain. Despite not having the financial capability to afford a Rolex, every person in this world has a wish to join that elite community of a Rolex owner and signify one’s dignity and status of wealth and class. And that’s what Rolex thrives for in their competitive business world.
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Writer :
Abrar Bin Naser
Intern
Content Writing Department,
YSSE.