Affinity marketing at it's very, very finest. Rolex has made Mariners, Aviators, Drivers, etc, seek out and own a luxury time piece. Dave Young: Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Bonney Home Services Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here alongside Stephen Semple. And Stephen whispered in my ear, as we all know he does at the very beginning of the show, but he whispered in my ear that he's not going to tell me the topic. He's going to keep it to himself and tell a little story. Stephen Semple: Yeah, I'm going to rob you of your preparation time. Dave Young: See, it's the thing that my brain loves is to hear the thing and remember my story about whatever the product is. So you go ahead with your little story. Stephen Semple: And you go into your imaginary world and ignore me. Dave Young: I'll be over here just doodling. Let me know when we're ready to start. Stephen Semple: So what inspired this was I was in Vegas recently and I was speaking at one of these big international cleaning conferences- Dave Young: As one does well. Stephen Semple: And these things are huge. Like Vegas is so big, man, it's crazy. But what I did each morning is there's a coffee shop I really like in the Bellagio that has just great espresso. So my morning routine was get up, go over to this coffee shop, grab an espresso. And if anyone's been in the Bellagio, the retail outlets in the Bellagio are phenomenal. Dave Young: Oh, God. Stephen Semple: They're Harry Winston, and Tiffany's, and Cartier, and Rolex. They are all the big fancy brands. Dave Young: I am so clumsy. I can't afford to sneeze if I go into one of those places. Stephen Semple: And what's incredible actually, if you're a retailer, and I've said this a lot, if you're a retailer and you're looking for ideas on how to do store displays, spend two days wandering through Vegas. The store displays are just phenomenal. But here's the thing that stood out to me. Each morning I was there just before the retail stores would open, and there's one store that every morning had a lineup, and that was Rolex. Dave Young: Rolex? Stephen Semple: Every morning there was a lineup at Rolex. Not at Cartier, not at Tiffany's, at Rolex. And I went, "Wow, that says something about the power of Rolex." So I looked at it and said, we all know Rolex is a super powerful brand. People who have Rolex stores can't keep Rolex in stock. But that just really did it for me. Dave Young: It turns out Rolex means coffee in Italian or something. They were just in the wrong place. Stephen Semple: Might've been. Might've been. So what I want to do with Rolex is we'll talk a little bit about the early innovation of Rolex, but the big thing I want to talk about is how Rolex promoted its brand. Because they did some really interesting things how they promoted the company. So Rolex was founded by Hans Wilsdorf, and he really was a pioneer in taking the pocket watch to the wristwatch. And legend, whatever has it that the name Rolex, as he describes it, the name Rolex was whispered in his ear when he was in a horse-drawn carriage going through Cheapside in the City of London. It was just this inspirational name. And it didn't mean anything, but he just liked the sound of it. And the first breakthrough came in July. He was given Class A Observatory Certificate was awarded to the wristwatch,
