Timex built a brand by proving its watches survive anything — on live TV.

Timex owns one of the most famous slogans in advertising: “It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.” It came from a brilliant 1950s campaign of live TV “torture tests,” hosted by the newsman John Cameron Swayze from 1956, in which Timex watches were strapped to boat propellers, tumbled in washing machines, dropped off cliffs and shaken in paint mixers — and kept ticking. The stunts dramatised the brand’s whole promise: affordable, durable, everyday American watches that undercut the Swiss on price while proving they could take a beating. By the end of the 1950s, roughly one in three watches sold in the US was a Timex. (Honest caveats: the wordmark is a clean sans with no officially documented typeface, so don’t name a font; and Timex publishes no official brand hex — the mark is typically black or dark blue on white.)

Timex’s other signature innovation is Indiglo — the electroluminescent backlight that makes the whole dial glow a soft blue-green — introduced in 1992, first in the Ironman line. A widely-told (and often-repeated) story cemented its fame: during the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, someone reportedly used an Indiglo watch to help guide people down a dark, smoke-filled stairwell (best treated as reported lore rather than documented detail). Indiglo turned a practical feature into a memorable brand asset.

The company is genuinely old. Timex traces to the Waterbury Clock Company, founded in 1854 in Waterbury, Connecticut, which made the famous Ingersoll “Yankee” dollar watches that put watches within reach of ordinary people. During WWII it became a major producer of timing fuzes (renamed the United States Time Corporation), and the “Timex” brand name arrived around 1950. On ownership, a common error to correct: since 2020 the Boston investment firm The Baupost Group holds a majority of Timex Group, while the Norwegian Olsen family (which controlled Timex from 1941 to 2020) retains a minority via Timex Group B.V. — so it’s not simply “Olsen-controlled” today.

Timex lives in blue and ink. Click a swatch to copy the hex.

Timex’s palette is a dependable blue and black on white — clean, trustworthy and unfussy, matching an affordable, durable everyday watch. The blue reads as reliable and classic; black and white keep it legible and honest. And there’s a lovely brand-owned accent: the blue-green glow of Indiglo, a colour uniquely associated with Timex. It’s a straightforward, functional palette for a straightforward, functional brand — no luxury pretension, just clarity and trust. The honest caveat: Timex publishes no official public brand hex, so the blue and the Indiglo teal here are approximations rather than a confirmed spec.

The lesson is a clean, trustworthy palette for a value brand. Timex’s blue-and-black reads as dependable and honest, exactly right for an affordable, durable watch, while the Indiglo glow gives it one ownable, memorable accent. For designers, it’s a reminder that a value brand benefits from a clear, unpretentious palette — and that a single distinctive feature-colour (Indiglo teal) can become brand shorthand. The takeaways: keep a value brand’s palette clean and trustworthy (blue, black, white); own a distinctive accent tied to a real feature (Indiglo); and treat specific hexes as approximate when none is published.

The wordmark is a clean sans — honest and legible.

Timex’s clean, uppercase sans wordmark is honest and legible — no flourish, no pretension, just clear, confident letters that suit an affordable, dependable everyday watch. The mark has been quietly refined over the decades (a bolder early version, a lighter upright form from the 1960s, further streamlining in the quartz era), but it has always read as straightforward and trustworthy rather than fashionable. That plainness is the point: Timex sells reliability and value, and its wordmark makes no promises it can’t keep. (Because no official typeface is documented — a one-off bespoke display face Timex commissioned for a 2017 project is not the corporate mark — the honest description is “a clean sans,” not a named font.) The type behaves like the brand: honest, legible and dependable.

Timex built a brand by demonstrating durability, not just claiming it.

Timex is a lesson in proving a claim instead of just making it. Rather than tell people its cheap watches were tough, Timex showed them — live, on television, strapped to propellers and dropped off cliffs — and let the watches keep ticking. That demonstration-based marketing, crystallised in “it takes a licking and keeps on ticking,” built enormous trust and made Timex the everyday American watch. The brand’s whole identity — affordable, durable, honest, unpretentious — was earned through visible proof, and later reinforced by genuinely useful innovation (Indiglo). It’s a reminder that demonstrating a benefit is far more persuasive than asserting it.

For designers and brand-builders, Timex offers a clear takeaway: demonstrate your core benefit rather than just claiming it. The lessons: prove durability (or any promise) visibly and memorably (the torture tests) to build real trust; back the brand with genuinely useful innovation (Indiglo) that people remember; and keep the identity honest and unpretentious to match a value positioning. It’s also a reminder to keep the facts precise — “it takes a licking and keeps on ticking” came from John Cameron Swayze’s 1950s torture-test ads; Indiglo launched in 1992 (first in Ironman), with the 1993 WTC story best treated as lore; Timex traces to the 1854 Waterbury Clock Company, with the Timex name arriving around 1950; and Baupost holds a majority of Timex Group since 2020. Timex turned visible proof into a trusted brand — proof that showing beats telling.

Keep Timex’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.