Diamond Marketing


De Beers started marketing campaigns for diamonds in the '30's by showing diamonds as wedding gifts in popular movies.  Publishing stories in magazines and newspapers which would emphasize the romantic value of diamonds and associate them with celebrities.  Using fashion designers and other trendsetters to promote the trend on radio and later, television.  Guess what, even the Royal Family of Britton were asked to promote diamonds. 

These campaigns were described by De Beers' agency as a "new form of advertising which has been widely imitated ever since" with "no brand name to be impressed on the public mind.  There is simply an idea, the eternal emotional value surrounding the diamond"  This campaign succeeded in reviving the American diamond market, which was weakened by "competitive luxuries", and opening markets where none had existed before.  In Japan, diamonds were successfully promoted as a western symbol of status, which fell in line with Japan's cultural opening after World War II.  Japan, never had a diamond tradition before the De Beers campaign, it is now the second largest market for retail diamonds.

N.W. Ayer, came up with the slogan "A Diamond is Forever", how's that for some pricey words, and long lived. The reasoning behind them is to discourage women from selling the diamonds they received, and from buying diamonds which other women have owned.  In this effort you keep a secondary market from getting established and allow De Beers to maintain control of the diamond trade at the wholesale level.

De Beers, didn't get to invent the diamond engagement ring.  It can be traced to the marriage of Maximillian I (then Archduke of Austria) to Mary of Burgundy in 1477.  While the act did much to advance the Habsburg empire, it did little to make the diamond ring a widely encountered expression of betrothal.

Did any of you know that you can have the remains of a loved one or pet turned into "memorial diamonds".  I for one may be a bit uncomfortable with this idea.