No disclosure needed.

In the 1980s Toyota realized that their well deserved reputation for reliability could and should compete with Mercedes and BMW, both plagued by poor quality control and egregious repair costs. But lacking a powerful V8, it was not until 1989 that they entered the market with a jewel-like 4 liter V8 in the LS400 sedan. Putting out close to 300hp and reliable as a hammer, a new nameplate was required to distinguish the new car from the hoi polloi trucks and small sedans which had made its name, so Toyota came up with ‘Lexus’. This was a smart play on ‘luxury’ and ‘US’, and the price of $35,000 with no options seriously undercut the Germans’ offerings. Two early customer complaints about defective wiring saw Lexus deliver a new loaner to each of the first 8,000 buyers while they fixed the issue. Toyota recalled all cars sold and secured brand loyalty for generations. A model of how these things should be done. Once the Germans got their hands on the car a BMW engineer was heard to remark “What are they trying to do? Kill us?”. BMW and Mercedes quality control had received a well deserved kick in the pants.

Not to be upstaged, Nissan decided to emulate Toyota, making and even more powerful V8, throwing in a lot of race bred technology and christening their offering the Infinity Q45. Arguable a better vehicle than the LS400 the car failed spectacularly in the US market, selling hundreds to Lexus’s hundreds of thousands. The reason? A disastrous advertising campaign which has become a business school study. Infinity decided that their product was so great, so ethereally superior, that they omitted showing it in TV ads. Instead they opted for the now infamous images of swaying fields of wheat with a voice over. A disaster from which the brand never recovered.

The maker of the finest mechanical watch, Patek Philippe, was not so much taking a leaf (sheaf?) out of Infinity’s book as it was recognizing that its brand power was and remains unique. Not only do they frequently omit showing the product, they know all too well that only Patek owners and aspiring owners would immediately recognize the brand from the images, without bothering to read the fine print. Because the imagery in this now long running campaign focused one thing and one thing only, the class of the wearers.

I found the above ad in issue three of the Patek Philippe magazine which has been published for many years now. Patek’s magazine is the ne plus ultra of what we horribly call ‘lifestyle’ magazines and while all others have fallen by the wayside, Patek continues putting out two or three annually. So proud are they of this production that they recently offered three free back numbers to Patek owners and I snapped up #s 1, 3 and 6. The above image is from #3. All you have to do to get yours is buy the timepiece.

And yes, my daily driver is a 2000 LS400, last of breed and, no, it’s not for sale. My son wants it.