Good deeds, good sense

Late last year, on a somewhat nippy November evening in New York, a ballroom full of artists, journalists and New York cognoscenti assembled at the Lincoln Center to mark the conclusion of the latest edition of the Rolex Mentor and Protege Arts Initative.

The packed ballroom was an assortment of some of the finest exponents of art and sport on the planet. Steve Buscemi sat two tables away from Vijay Amritraj, while Margaret Atwood made small talk with the magnificently coiffed Wole Soyinka.

They were all there, however, not for yet another awards ceremony, or to felicitate the already heavily felicitated. Instead, they were assembled at the New York Public Library to honour the next generation of artists.

Six young men and women, all graduates of the Arts Initiative, had spent the previous year under the mentorship and tutelage of some of the most respected artists in the world. Visual arts protégé Nicholas Hlobo worked with Anish Kapoor, the London-based artist renowned for his monumental works of art, including the recent ArcelorMittal Orbit for the 2012 London Olympics.

Other mentors for the 2010-11 cycle of the Intiative included composer Brian Eno and film-maker Zhang Yimou.

Rebecca Irvin, head of philanthropy at Rolex, told the media last November that the Initiative, started in 2001, has many goals. One is to both preserve and nurture traditions and techniques in various art forms. Another is to create global networks of mentorships, something that was impossible just a few decades ago before the advent of cheap transport and communication.

With Rolex footing the bill for the year’s worth of travel and interaction, young developing artists, often without the means to do the globetrotting themselves, can now spend extended periods of deep immersion with established masters.

For instance, in a previous mentoring session, film-maker Martin Scorsese not only interacted frequently with his protégé, Argentine film-maker Celina Murga, but also invited Murga to witness his work during the filming and editing of the film Shutter Island. And in August last year, Scorsese announced he would be the executive producer of Murga’s The Third Side Of The River.

Projects such as the Arts Initiative do many things for a brand like Rolex. For one, it is a philanthropic project. Rolex is a closely held private company. Many people believe that much of Rolex’s considerable income is dedicated to philanthropic projects, with the Arts Intiative being the most prominent one.

But initiatives such as these also help add to the brand’s public aura. For Rolex, it is a messaging masterstroke, connecting with both the world of established masters and the more dynamic world of the impetuous upstarts. In marketing terms, Rolex is straddling the world of the arrived and the aspiring, both key emotional segments.

“We believe that the luxury industry is all about selling dreams,” said IWC Schaffhausen’s Karoline Huber. Huber is director of marketing and communications at the highly respected German watchmaker, well known for its Portuguese family of watches. Huber spoke to Indulge shortly after the latest edition of the Laureus World Sports Awards held in London in February.

IWC has been associated with the Laureus Sport For Good Foundation since 2005, when it came on board as a lead sponsor. The foundation, well known for its annual sports awards, brings together world-class athletes from all over the world to run sports projects in socially challenged parts of the world.

In February, Laureus World Sports Academy chairman Edwin Moses told Indulge how Laureus chose these projects carefully, linked them up with champions, and then kept a close eye on them throughout the year. “Getting people to play sports, especially kids, can materially change the way they approach their lives.”

But in less-fortunate parts of the world, initiatives such as the Laureus projects can step in effectively. In December 2005, Waugh and fellow Laureus World Sports Academy member Kapil Dev opened the Seenigama Sports project near Galle in Sri Lanka. The project was located in an area devastated by the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, and involved training boys and girls in nearby villages in cricket and other sports.

Besides directly funding Laureus projects, IWC also launched an annual special-edition Laureus watch. “These watches act not only as ambassadors for good causes, but also a defined percentage of the sales goes into a financial contribution, focused on the activities of the foundation,” said Huber.

For brands like Rolex and IWC, the Laureus Foundation and projects such as the Arts Initiative serve multi-faceted purposes. They augment the brand’s international messaging. They help them connect with people who share similar values and priorities. And also they help the brands fulfill a social obligation, one that often gets lost in the glitz and glamour of luxury creation and consumption.

sidin.v@livemint.com