“You’re going to have a very hard time marketing purely through tradition,” were the first words I heard when I spoke to Dave Marcotte about what the natural-diamond industry needs to do to appeal to younger consumers and reignite passion among older ones. “This funnel of generations where each generation has less people in it means that the context of tradition has been eroded,” said the senior vice president of the Americas for retail advisory group Kantar Consulting.
Marcotte is a man who knows what he’s talking about. He has been advising the retail industry on changing trends, reinvention, generational differences and desires, and finding a sweet spot for decades. He believes the diamond industry’s tendency to fall back on tradition, even when it believes it’s embracing change, is holding it back.
“When I look at the diamond industry’s ads of the past few years, I see absolutely no connection to anything,” he noted. They talk about the commitment to love, they have a black background, they have all the things that traditionally have shown off diamonds best, without making any connection whatsoever to the people they’re trying to sell to.”
By way of explanation, Marcotte cited a 2012 movie called Mariachi Gringo. “In the film, which was made in Mexico, every time the characters are in the US, the film is shot in greys, and it’s overcast and dull, and people are eating bland food. However, when they are in Mexico, everything is popping with color, people are doing stuff, it’s messy, but it’s alive,” he said. The diamond industry needs to find a way to become Mexico, he observed; to pop, to be seen in color.
Marcotte isn’t the only expert who feels that way. Laryssa Wirstiuk, founder of Joy Joya, a digital-marketing agency that works with luxury jewelry brands, agreed that the diamond industry needed to step up its game. And those who think they can continue to regurgitate something that worked well once, with only minor tweaks, à la Ghostbusters, The Karate Kid, or What Women Want, are kidding themselves.
“I think the messaging needs to turn away from things like ‘A diamond Is forever,’ and all that traditional messaging,” she explained. “I don’t want to knock that tagline, because it obviously had its place, and its success, but the traditional messaging that worked 10, 15, 20 years ago — people don’t care about it anymore. There has to be a different way of looking at what makes a diamond special that resonates with the younger generation, because they just have much different values than even older millennials, and what worked before won’t work now.”
A different kind of love
Love has always been the cornerstone of traditional diamond marketing — a love that will last forever, just like a diamond; a love that is precious and rare, just like a diamond — and that doesn’t have to change. But the message behind it should, experts say. And jewelers agree. I asked our readers what focus they thought would appeal most to their consumers, offering them seven choices: love, rarity, sustainability, the good diamonds do, investment value, passing down inheritance, or a different option. Unsurprisingly, love was among the top choices. Surprisingly, it was not the most popular pick. Over 40% of respondents believed focusing on diamonds’ rarity would best serve them, while approximately 30% chose love and 25% selected passing down an inheritance.
It would seem love doesn’t always have to mean romantic love— it could mean love of something unique and special, love for future generations of your family, self-love. It could even be the sentiment that is tied to a memory from childhood, such as sitting on your grandmother’s lap, smelling her perfume, and fingering her pearl and diamond necklace, feeling utter comfort and security as the beads rolled in your fingers and the stones shot off brilliant colored light.
Marcotte references Patek Philippe, which he says has always been his “gold standard” for creating emotional connectivity and the idea of rarity. The watchmaker advertises that when you buy one of its pieces, you are not buying it for yourself, but for the next generation. It not only forms an emotional connection, but it also gives you the idea that it’s quality and will last, which automatically provides it with long-term cachet as a luxury piece, he explains. He also points to Tiffany & Co., which released a campaign called the Fifth Generation of Fifth Avenue that put the idea in consumers’ minds that they had an exclusive product that people had been coming back to for 50 years.
“Love is timeless, just like diamonds,” commented Mehul Hirpara, an exporter of luxury goods at Atlantico International. “When people buy diamonds, they aren’t just purchasing a stone — they’re investing in a symbol of love, commitment and cherished memories. Whether it’s for engagements, anniversaries, or personal milestones, love is the emotion that connects customers to diamonds on a deeper level.”
Finding the groove
The experts concur that tying a campaign to a product can often be a hard ask, and that customers relate more to a brand and its mission. That leaves natural diamonds in a conundrum, because generic marketing must always focus on the product. Joy Joya’s Wirstiuk suggested addressing that issue by first resisting the temptation to compete with lab-grown and focusing on what will sell diamonds.
“I think in marketing, if you are just looking to try and outpace the other guy, it’s a constant race to the bottom, because you’re not actually doing anything positive to differentiate yourself in a fun, interesting and unique way, and I think customers catch on to that and they don’t like the drama,” she said.
Another problem she often sees with natural diamonds is that much of the marketing tends to reflect frustration at consumers.
“There’s this energy that comes through in the storytelling that almost feels condescending, like, ‘Why don’t you get it, why don’t you understand how rare natural diamonds are,’” she pointed out. “Rather than being frustrated that people don’t see your product in the same way they may have a decade or two ago, you need to humble yourself, think differently, and be open to change.”
Instead, Wirstiuk thinks that while the diamond industry doesn’t have to give up on love, rarity or any of the other selling points so common to the trade, it also should focus on fun. Younger generations are more interested in experiences than material items, so to turn a diamond into an experience, you need to show consumers how it can be a part of their fun, exciting and exclusive lifestyle.
“I think the thing that attracts the younger generation, and not enough jewelry brands are doing, is the element of fun, and that someone who can afford luxury has an image of a more easygoing, carefree lifestyle that many aspire to,” she said. “Jewelry brands approach things a bit too seriously, and the element of fun is sometimes lacking. If you think of prestige, like apparel brands and really high-end couture designer brands, maybe 25 years ago, you would imagine them on some uptight Upper West Side lady who’s walking her little dog and she’s very prim and proper. These days, you see influencers who are out partying and dripped in luxury and having fun; they don’t have a care in the world. It’s not so stuck up anymore, and I think that is the version of luxury that people gravitate toward and what keeps it relevant for younger people.”
Tiffany is one example of a company that is marketing successfully, Wirstiuk shared. The jeweler has collaborated with many influencers, like Pharrell Williams, Beyoncé and Lady Gaga, and it makes them more relatable. Their advertising is classy but fun, as noted in a recent holiday campaign with actress Anya Taylor-Joy, in which she enters a fantasy world after putting on her diamonds. Swarovski also took the fun route with its recent holiday campaign featuring Ariana Grande. Both those campaigns scored the highest in a survey Rapaport News ran asking readers which of a number of holiday campaigns they preferred.
Doing it right
Recently, several groups and companies in the industry seem to have gotten the message, launching fun and amusing campaigns that are endearing and highlight the value of diamonds, even while not focusing completely on that diamond. A series of “Who’s your Dadi” ads from the Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) show a man, his new fiancée and his funny grandmother talking about marriage.
Meanwhile, the most recent Real, Rare, Responsible ad from the Natural Diamond Council (NDC) features actress Lily James under the Aurora Borealis in Canada’s Northwest Territories in the dead of winter, as scenes of wildlife, nature and the First Nations communities play in the background.
Another brand that has sparked media attention for an ad making the right move is Kalyan Jewellers, which features a plus-size bride shopping for a wedding dress and jewelry with her friends. The bride’s size is not mentioned; she is not the butt of a joke, nor is she seen as comic relief. She is merely an everyday bride, out with her friends, looking for the perfect dress. An ad that, according to the feedback, goes outside the traditional box of featuring size-two supermodel lookalikes to which many don’t relate.
It’s this kind of innovative attitude that’s missing in the industry, and it’s the kind of thinking brands need to adopt to make waves with Millennials, Gen Zs and Gen Alphas.
“It’s hard to think outside the box and consider a new way of looking at how you’re presenting your brand and your product,” said Wirstiuk. “I see that a lot in the diamond and jewelry industry. The idea is that ‘This is the way we’ve been doing things for 50 years, and it’s always worked,’ so why not just continue. It’s very hard to consider something else, but I think you need to do something different, because same, same is not going to help anymore.”
Images: Dave Marcotte, polished diamonds, Laryssa Wirstiuk. (Dave Marcotte/Shutterstock/Laryssa Wirstiuk)
