Rolex makes some great watches, I would never argue that. The thing that gets my goat is the way they have got themselves perceived as the luxury watch non plus ultra by the man in the street, and the marketing continues to play off that. Whilst all the time being as ubiquitous as they are, despite making something in the order of 10 times as many watches as most of their competitors. And playing the market by artificially restricting the supply of certain models to keep demand stoked.

I'm sure someone like our own David DeVos knows that and buys anyway because he likes the watches enough to ignore the marketing flim-flam, but I feel for the average uninformed purchaser and especially those who aspire to the Rolex "dream", it feels like a bit of a confidence job. And the marketing never does anything to dispel that.

Not that Heuer weren't above marketing too, of course; getting the name on the F1 cars, calling what was essentially a continuation of the long-standing triple calendar line a Carrera for a few more sales and so on, but there was a more innocent naivety about it that's more appealing to me than the Rolex marketing juggernaut.

Perhaps ironically, I drive BMWs and their marketing in the UK has often been just as guilty in their field as Rolex. Luckily, I have also seen German marketing at the same time - the "Freude am Fahren" (Pleasure in driving) tagline was always less hyperbolic than the UK's "Ultimate Driving Machine", and the marketing in general less strident. Nonetheless, 3 series have become pretty ubiquitous in themselves for the last couple of generations and the reputation of the drivers certainly isn't the best (though when I commuted to Heathrow every week, I found Golf drivers to be the least considerate on the road, so there you go!) and yet they still appeal to me, mechanically and aesthetically. Though it wasn't the marketing that turned me on to them, it was more being in the right place at the right time and seeing fleets of E30 M3s being delivered to various dealers around Munich. Yummy. That and the association with perhaps still my favourite city in the world and the deal was clinched. At times I have liked them despite the marketing.

And yet not the same with Rolex. I've never had that initial spark with them, so the marketing gets in the way and alternatives are perhaps more readily available than they are for small rear-drive sporting cars with straight-six engines :) So I'll forgive BMW what I don't forgive Rolex. Completely rational? Perhaps not, but it's the way it is. Oh, and watch fairs would be a whole lot easier to navigate without having to wade through floods of 3-hand Rolexes!!!