THE TOUGH STUFF

People go on expeditions, but watches help them to stay on course and on time

- Richard Holt 

When Edmund Hillary got to the top of Everest in 1953 he spent about a quarter of an hour scouring the surrounding mountain scapes for other places to climb. Before beginning the descent, he declined to have his photo taken. Imagine that now... Tenzing Norgay did pose for a picture, but only because Hillary wanted to document the feat, not because the Sherpa thought he looked awesome with an ice pick. Both men became celebrities, but this wasn’t what they were looking for – they just wanted to climb.

Others wanted as much publicity from the expedition as possible. Behind the scenes, two companies were working very hard to be seen as the watchmaker that helped conquer the world’s highest mountain. In the Swiss corner was Rolex; in the British corner was S. Smith & Sons – later Smiths – a company that started as a watch- and clockmaker in 1851, and diversified into making instruments for cars, boats and planes.

Rolex was one of the first brands to fully understand the power of advertising. From the Twenties it took out newspaper ads showing watches surviving cross-Channel swims and land speed records. The Everest attempt was right up Rolex’s street and it kitted out Hillary’s team with watches and made sure as many people as possible knew about it.