Tiffany uses same-sex couple in ad. Who'll follow?

New York--Tiffany & Co. is set to debut its first advertisement featuring a gay couple this spring, part of the venerable 178-year-old retailer’s take on modern love. 

Called “Will You?” and shot by fashion photographer Peter Lindbergh, the spring 2015 campaign takes a “truly modern look at love, the proposal and marriage,” Tiffany said.  

It features seven different scenes of couples. 

The ad with the same-sex couple--which the retailer publicly has confirmed is its first--has two men who are not models but, rather, a real-life couple. It shows them sitting together on a New York City stoop and the text reads, “Will you promise to never stop completing my sentences or singing off-key, which I am afraid you do often? And will you let today be the first sentence of one long story that never ever ends? Will you?” 

Tiffany said the scenes depicted in “Will You?” are meant to convey the idea that they were captured at that moment in time when the couple realized they were meant to be together forever. 

The New York-based jeweler joins the growing list of companies, both in and outside the jewelry industry, now openly marketing to the LGBT community. Family-owned chain Rogers & Hollands, for example, added Rony Tennenbaum’s line of wedding jewelry geared toward the LGBT community to the inventory of two Chicago-area stores this past spring, following Ben Bridge Jeweler, which added Tennenbaum’s line to some of its stores in July 2013.

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In addition to the gay couple, there are more traditional couples in the Tiffany campaign--young and just starting out--as well as a couple that already has a child together by the time they reach their wedding day, a nod to the growing number of people who are choosing to have children outside of marriage.

“These impactful scenes convey that modern love is not linear and that true love comes in a variety of forms,” Tiffany said. “These couples represent the spectrum of people who visit Tiffany every day to find that uniquely symbolic ring, the ultimate expression of love.”

“Will You?” is a global campaign that will use digital, video and social components. It is set to debut in the spring.