For decades, watchmakers have come up with innovative publicity stunts designed to focus attention on the singular virtues of their timepieces.
In a memorable stunt in 1956, Swiss watchmaker Wyler demonstrated the shock-absorbing capacity of its watches' revolutionary balance wheel by dropping two of its timepieces nearly 1,000 feet from the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
Six years later, the company followed up on the idea in the United States by dropping six watches 318 feet from the landmark 27-storey Seattle Tower in Washington state.
In both cases, the watch mechanisms were unaffected by the hard landing.
American watchmaker Timex was well known for a three-decade advertising campaign that began in the 1950s in which its watches were subjected to various 'torture tests' to prove their durability.
The tests included freezing a watch in water for 24 hours and strapping a watch to the propeller of an outboard motor. The company's slogan was: 'It takes a licking and keeps on ticking'.
