For the next generation — but more for this one

One of my favorite Twitter follows is behavioral scientist Richard Shotton, who recently tweeted his admiration for this classic tagline from the watchmaker Patek Philippe, “You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation.”

The campaign has run since 1996. Shotton explains, “It gives the buyer an alibi (I'm doing it for my kids) and it reframes the price (something to be mentally split across generations).”

Here is a powerful analysis of the psychology behind the campaign. This author argues that the campaign is not aimed at people like those in the ad. It’s aimed at people who want to be the people in the ad. The 1% doesn’t need an ad to tell them what quality is, the article posits, but the “Aspirational 14%” does.  

Those people may not literally care about passing their watch down to their children and grandchildren, but what this tagline says to them more broadly is, “This is a high quality watch that is worth spending thousands of dollars on. It will say something about you to the world.”

The article also presents a fascinating perspective on the gender implications of the ads – men and women never appear together – and also presents a compelling case why even those ads featuring mothers and daughters are really targeting men.