The number 1 advertising slogan of the last century, the iconic ‘A Diamond is Forever’, will henceforth no longer be the vanguard message of the diamond industry as the Diamond Producers Association unveils a new platform to redefine diamonds for the millennial generation.
A little over a week ago, the Diamond Producers Association (DPA), an organisation set up last year by the world’s largest diamond mining companies, including De Beers, revealed that it would be adopting a new campaign platform to promote diamonds among the millennial generation. That new platform is “Real is Rare. Real is Diamond”.
Thus, ‘A Diamond is Forever’, the four words that were the cornerstone of all global marketing campaigns launched by De Beers in various parts of the world since 1948, will now no longer enjoy a monopoly in generic promotions, though they will probably still be used by De Beers to push its own Forevermark brand of diamonds and diamond jewellery.
The reason for the shift, the DPA says, is to redefine diamonds for the 21st century, giving them new meaning and aligning them with the perceptions and thinking of the new millennial generation.
Come September, the DPA plans to roll out a new generic marketing promotion based on this slogan in an attempt to boost the stagnant, if not actually sagging, demand for diamonds globally. Given the estimated spend on the campaign, it is likely that it will be largely focused on the US and may even be concentrated around social media, rather than print or electronic as in the past.
But, for an industry that has spent virtually nothing on generic promotions over the last decadeor more, even that will be a good start.
Between 2000 and 2005, when it was no longer the majority producer of diamonds, De Beers gave up its role as custodian and chief promoter of the industry. The generic advertising campaigns that it had carried out across the world came to halt, and though it is difficult to prove a direct one-to-one relationship, the industry widely believes that diamond sales have been in decline ever since.
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