Budget for Marketing Diamonds Upped to $57M

Las Vegas--This week in Las Vegas, the Diamond Producers Association confirmed what was first reported back in January--the mining companies will be putting more money into the association in order to promote diamonds.

The DPA, which started with a total annual budget of about $6 million, announced this week in Las Vegas that it has a full-year marketing budget of $57 million for 2017, $50 million of which will be spent in the United States. The remaining money will go toward expanding the “Real is Rare” campaign into India and China.

While the new commercials for the fourth quarter have not been shot yet, the DPA did unveil its Q4 print ads--which will run in magazines and across digital and out-of-home--during the annual Plumb Club breakfast, which took place Tuesday at Mandalay Bay.

At the breakfast, DPA Chief Marketing Officer Deborah Marquardt presented data that dispels the idea that millennials don’t like or buy diamonds.

She said that there are 80 million millennials in the United States, making them the largest generation in the country today. They account for 27 percent of the total population but make up 41 percent of diamond sales volume, and, like they do with so many other aspects of their lives, they share the stones on social media.

“Millennials have made diamonds social media stars,” she told the audience. “Diamonds are at the center of social conversation, all day, every day.”

Marquardt said the problem isn’t that millennials are disinterested in diamonds; it’s that the industry hasn’t “cracked the code” on how to effectively relay the story behind them, which has been the premise of the DPA’s marketing efforts since the association was founded--to find a way to get the next generation interested in diamonds.

The first of the new ads from the DPA is slated to run in the July issue of “People” magazine.

Developed by Mother New York--the same agency that conceived “Real is Rare” with the DPA--the five single-page print ads were shot in New York City in March.

They focus primarily on diamond jewelry for engagements and marriages with jewelry from the likes of Gillian Conroy, Danhov, Greenwich Street Jewelers, Beverly K., Leo Schachter and Pluczenik featuring Forevermark.

Jewelers will be able to use the ads in-store and in local media. Usage guidelines will be available for download on the DPA’s trade portal beginning in July.