If sponsoring Formula 1 racing teams did not increase sales of luxury watches, then brands including Hublot, Richard Mille, Oris and Bell & Ross would stop doing it.
The benefits are even greater when the team being sponsored keeps winning races, and you hit the jackpot when its lead driver wins his home grand prix.
So it was this weekend as Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton’s stormed to victory at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in his silver arrow racing car sponsored by IWC Schaffhausen.
Sports sponsorship is about much more than sticking a logo on a racing car, the trick is to use the mass appeal of each event to make a tangible link between the essence of high precision, adreneline-fuelled motor racing and the micro-engineering and artistry of watchmaking.
IWC reminded potential watch customers of this association by parking a Mercedes Formula 1 car outside its London flagship on Bond Street last week.
WatchPro visited the installation on Thursday and the car was certainly a crowd-puller. Almost all of them had their mobile phones out taking selfies with the IWC store as a background. Some, IWC will hope, will have been using hashtags like #IWCRacing.
