Last year, I wrote a Freely Speaking entitled ‘For God’s sake, stop winking in the dark’ in which I pleaded for more advertising in the magazine to avoid being made redundant since I have to maintain two ex-wives, a tailor and Toby my dog in the manner to which they have become accustomed.
In response to this heartfelt appeal, Everhard Vissers, the ‘brain’ behind Magellan Watches, sent me a letter accompanied by a bone for Toby –
“… a small but well-meant token of my sympathy…” In addition, he suggested that some time in the near future I might consider formulating “… the definitive answers to those vexing horological questions, ‘What are you made ofı’ and ‘Who will you be in the next 24 hoursı’”
The fertile seed having been planted, once my holidays on the Riviera and in Australia were over I totally abandoned them to concentrate on discovering the raison-d’être for these complex questions.
It’s taken me nearly a year of profound, archaeological research to unearth the answers, but here, exclusively for you, are the findings.

‘What are you made of‘
This intriguing phrase used by TAG Heuer in its advertising is usually accompanied by either a photo of the handsome Tiger Woods crouching, holding a putter and placing a golf ball on the ground, or at the end of his swing with the unseen ball flying off from here to eternity. Surprisingly, ‘What are you made ofı’ doesn’t refer to the flesh, bones and gory entrails that make up what we lovingly refer to as our body, or even the nursery rhyme definition of ‘sugar and spice and all that’s nice’ for girls and ‘snaps and snails and puppy-dogs’ tails’ for boys. No, the question was asked by Tiger himself and was addressed to the hitherto unknown surface on which he is crouching. As you can see if you look closely, it is clearly not the beautifully tailored grass of a green that the Tiger is used to playing on.
The question, of course, remained unanswered because surfaces are not endowed with the power of speech. The account executive from the advertising agency however, was equipped with this most human faculty and assuming that the great golfer might have some mysterious allergy, tried to allay his fears. “Don’t worry Tiger, it’s only felt under-carpeting.” Feeling that he should add a comforting remark, he added, “But hey, that ‘What are you made ofı’ is a great line, far better than the ‘You won’t lose you balls with TAG’ we were thinking of using.”
Tiger’s retort remains a secret and will be released in either 45 years, when the Freedom of Information Act becomes more effective, or when TAG Heuer brings out another ad.

‘Who will you
be in the next 24 hours‘
Patek Philippe regularly use ‘You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation’ phrase. It has proven to be highly successful and is often admired by budding copywriters lamenting, “I wish I’d written that!”
But let’s put things into perspective. If you had just purchased one of Patek’s masterpieces, at around, let’s say, the price of the latest Porsche, would you like to be told that the watch you have just paid good money for really isn’t yours, that you’re merely leasing it until you kick the bucketı Okay, the message is it will last more than one lifetime … but why underline the fact that sooner or later the buyer is going finish up six foot underı Anyway, to cut a long story to shreds, the brand felt that they needed a follow-up to this much-admired catchphrase and after many hours of deliberation, plumped for a pretty lady wearing a Twenty-4 and asking, ‘Who will you be in the next 24 hoursı’
As you can see there is a certain consistency in the two phrase endings ‘…the next generation’ and ‘… the next 24 hours’. Convention has it that a generation is normally considered to be about 35 years, but Patek realized that as good as the text is, they are in the business of selling watches and one watch every 35 years was not such a great turnover. So what to doı The perfect solution was to shorten the procreation cycle to a mere 24 hours and address the ad to the unborn boy, girl or independent. The asking price for the Twenty-4 in the ad was also reduced from the equivalent of a Porsche to a Mini convertible.
Both the potential and expectant mummies and daddies that had recently practised the noble art of procreation immediately seized upon the innovative concept of their as yet unborn child having a watch without having to wait the customary 35 years. The net result is that sales of the diamond-set Twenty-4 have exploded and in the very near future there’ll be many a young boy at school teasingly wearing a wristwatch sparkling with diamonds.
Eat your heart out Marilyn, diamonds are also a boy’s best friend!