Diamond Marketing Takes the ‘Rare’ Route

Las Vegas--At an event held Friday morning in Las Vegas, the Diamond Producers Association unveiled the line that will be at the core of a new millennial-focused generic marketing campaign for diamonds.

It is: “Real is rare. Real is a diamond.”

In introducing the new campaign, DPA CEO Jean-Marc Lieberherr said the success of the diamond industry has been built on “A Diamond is Forever,” the highly effective marketing slogan developed by De Beers in 1947, and the value of that line won’t disappear. (And, in fact, it still is in use by De Beers for its diamond brand, Forevermark.)

However, the DPA, “saw the opportunity to develop a new great idea, a new great idea that’s crafted for younger generations, that’s crafted by them and for them and which will reactualize the diamond dream in their mind,” he said.

The U.S.-focused campaign will begin rolling out this September, with an emphasis on television, premium digital media and video-on-demand advertising.

The DPA, the organization formed by the world’s biggest diamond miners, is not disclosing how much it will spend to start, though when the organization was formed its budget was said to be about $6 million a year.

In creating Real Is Rare, The DPA worked with creative agency Mother New York to translate four insights gained by interviewing millennial-aged consumers about diamonds into a marketing strategy.

According to David Lamb, the former managing director of the World Gold Council who is working with the DPA, those insights included the fact that millennials are searching for real connections in this digital age.

They live in a world where they are “up to [their] eyes in Facebook but still searching for something face-to-face,” he said.

“As Mother said when they first presented the thought to us, I think that line puts a stake in the ground for this industry. It says not just that you understand the lives of the people you want to target, but that you are offering them a product, a set of satisfactions with a purpose,” he said.

During his presentation in Vegas, Lamb showed a minute-long video, which he noted was not a finished piece of communication, that ended with Real is Rare line.

The video, which was met with a round of applause at the DPA’s presentation, is currently not available for publication. The DPA has not yet released any other creative from the campaign.