Watch Advertising Less Print and Internets
Magazines and possibly other print media still have watch advertising, as the audience demographics tend to be specific enough for it to be warranted. The internets similarly have your number and can target with precision.*
But the mass market, what is the state of advertising there? Bulova did the first television ad ever, and I hear they sponsor some NYC AM talk radio station, getting live reads. This week I tuned in to something on PBS early enough to catch a Movado ad, er underwriter acknowledgement or something. I've seen highway billboards at times for higher end stuff, but I'm not in the area enough to comment.
People of Earth, what is the watch advertising seen in the wild where you are (except the ubiquitous internet stuff and waiting room magazines.**
*IT won't let me have admin rights, so I can't get an ad blocker. This means that any page with ads is instantly littered with ads of watches. It's very embarrassing.
** You'd think that medical professionals would not be so bold as to toss their old boating magazines or other affluent lifestyle publications out in the patient waiting rooms, but they do.
Started as a quartzbro goofing on the mechanical snobs, wrote for thetruthaboutwatches.com, and lately started finding forgotten familial vintage watches in need of love.
Our local AD always has Rolex billboards on our interstate. I had seen the Rolex ones so often that I tuned them out - advertising watches that you can't buy. I was surprised to see Omega as I drove around the other day. (This is a small city. You are never more than 25 miles from swamp or national forest.)
Local Ben Bridge Jewelers advertises Tudor on billboards by the freeway.
Every time I see the billboard, this is what it makes me think of...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhlBRw_d1eA
I could be remembering this all wrong, but at some point, I think Charles Barkley said something along the lines of, "I am not a role model. I'm a guy who throws a ball into a small hoop. That's all I do. If your kids are treating me like a role model, you're doing something very wrong as a parent."
I live in Las Vegas and there are billboards all along the road to and out of the airport. Rolex, Hublot, and Omega are the ones I can remember off the top of my head.
I've seen Oris billboards in Yankee Stadium.
I don't have pictures but a couple stand out to me.
Heller Jewelers advertises purely Rolex (usually a somewhat ugly Yachtmaster 2).
Shreve and Co advertises via radio mainly around the holidays.
CH Premier has an Omega billboard up
I remember seeing a citizen eco drive billboard around not affiliated with an AD of any sort but I haven't seen it in some time.
I guess when I see a watch ad, I am in an airport. Maybe because of the importance of tracking time for the flights. I don't remember seeing, or noticing, watch ads elsewhere.
I see occasional billboards of Rado, Longines and Ulysee Nardin in the central part of the city. And lightbox adds in the malls where jewelery and watch stores are
Here I'm still getting at least two advertisements for Rolex or Tudor in the printed car magazine that I get every month. It must be working because they've been doing it for years.
We don't have billboards in the UK, nor are there any in Germany. The closest thing to that is advertising in bus stop shelters, and in Germany there are still a few Litfasssäulen around. I don't recalll seeing any watch ads on either of those, at least there weren't any in a long while. On TV? Nope. Just the odd ad in a mag. And there is the direct thing of putting watch displays in shop windows.
I saw a big Oris billboard on my way to work the other day. It was in one of the fast-growing counties. I also saw banners at the mall, even for brands like Tissot.
I do not watch TV, so I cannot speak to that. There are ads in a number of publications, and the main section of the WSJ is littered with them. (Then again, that's also targeting a specific demographic.)
What is very much absent is any advertisement for most entry-level brands, except online.
I'm surprised to see that roadside billboards, an afterthought in my original post, seem to be the biggest form of non-targeted advertising. I wish I knew more of the economics of it, but I suspect it's a fairly affordable, if local, way of doing things. And it certainly keeps the brand in the public eye, which the main point for established brands.
@hbein states the elephant in the room. Outside of those corny Stauer ads in "men's stuff" magazines, I haven't seen non-digital advertising for watches under ~$3-4K in twenty years or so.
Unsure of how prevalent they are in other parts of the UK but here in Notts it seems like Sekonda went a bit mad with the adverts. Every other sign it seems is Sekondas ugly yellow with black font yelling "They have enough Socks" and 3 chronographs.
Also, unsure of whether you have it across the pond but Top Gear magazine always has a bit in it talking about '3 watches you should think about owning' and a full colour spread on Christopher Ward