If you like Enicar, then you’ve probably already noticed that many different models of Enicar, Sherpas and what have you, all have ‘Ultrasonic’ written on the dial. Why is that?
In the early 1950s, competition between Swiss watch brands was at a high after the war, and so many were looking for innovative ways to stand out. That led Enicar to start implementing a new process at their production facilities in 1953, one they called ‘Ultrasonic’ cleaning. Enicar’s Ultrasonic process was actually quite simple: they used ultrasound (soundwaves) to agitate the fluid, which would in turn produce ultrasound waves and vibrations that create bubbles. The effect of agitating the fluid was to more thoroughly clean the movement of the watch, something that Enicar claimed preserved the oils in the movement for longer. They even boasted that their movements could go 3 years without a service!
For that reason, the ‘Ultrasonic’ brand appears on many different Enicar watches, but it really isn’t much different than seeing ‘Incabloc’ written on the dial of a watch. Most famously there’s the Enicar Ultrasonic Sherpa that the company attached to the rudder of the Mayflower II as a publicity stunt! The Mayflower II was a replica of the original Mayflower that went to the New World in 1620. It set sail from Plymouth to New York City in 1957 and Enicar attached the Ultrasonic Sherpa to the rudder of this ship as it crossed the Atlantic, with the hope of demonstrating just how rugged their watches were. The watch is said to have survived the journey in perfect condition – and Enicar gained a lot of publicity from the event.
In the end, Enicar never shied away from out of the box marketing, not only with the Ultrasonic, but also advertising other technologies like their ‘Star Jewels’ or ‘Oil-stop’ in a similar fashion. This was, of course, the nature of advertising in the 1950s, but the question does arise: was the Ultrasonic process really that effective? Or was it just advertising?
By: Eric Mulder