A diamond (advertising campaign) is forever

Wow — never have I felt such loathing and grudging respect for an advertising company as I do after reading this feature in The Atlantic: “Have You Ever Tried To Sell A Diamond?”

The article is from 1982, so it’s dated — there have been plenty of goings-on in the diamond world in the past 25 years, including growing awareness of “blood diamonds” and the opening up of Canadian mines  — but since most of the writing is about the history and development of the concept of the diamond, it’s still relevant.

Basically, there is no particular reason that diamonds are “forever” — the tradition of them representing love, or engagement, or marriage, or anything at all is a recent invention, devised to protect the interests of mine-owners who found themselves in the late 19th century with such a surplus of gems that they feared a market crash.

The solution was a decades-long advertising strategy, genius in how it was devised to create demand among women and girls — starting with them young, so that they would naturally want a diamond as they grew to marriageable age. Once North America was conquered, the tradition was internationalized.

And, of course, since these are precious stones that symbolize an individual love, you don’t pass them on to your daughter — she has to buy a new one.

Controlled by a wildly successful cartel, DeBeers, the diamond industry was extremely successful — until the Soviets discovered huge diamond mines of their own. So DeBeers just made them part of the cartel, too. The problem was that Soviet diamonds were much smaller than DeBeers was used to marketing. No problem, just create a demand:

DeBeers devised the “eternity ring,” made up of as many as twenty-five tiny Soviet diamonds, which could be sold to an entirely new market of older married women. The advertising campaign was based on the theme of recaptured love. Again, sentiments were born out of necessity: older American women received a ring of miniature diamonds because of the needs of a South African corporation to accommodate the Soviet Union.

The new campaign met with considerable success. The average size of diamonds sold fell from one carat in 1939 to .28 of a carat in 1976, which coincided almost exactly with the average size of the Siberian diamonds De Beers was distributing.

I don’t know enough of the recent history of the diamond business to judge the accuracy of The Atlantic’s predictions, later in the article, but I do know that diamonds are still expensive, they are still a required purchase for people looking to demonstrate love, and they are still difficult for individuals to sell — so I’m guessing the DeBeers people are still on top of their game.

Fascinating, yet frustrating, reading.