Diamond Rings

Diamond Rings: A Diamond Is Forever Campaign

In 1999, the Advertising Age, revered as being the foremost adverting magazine in the US stated that the DeBeers ‘A Diamond is Forever’ campaign was the most effective one in the last century. Looking at it from hindsight, this campaign very effectively took a monopolistic diamond trade and sold its products at the high end of the price spectrum through a combination of effective positioning and controlled supply.

Diamond Rings: Where the First Seeds were Sown

It all began way back in 1938 when the then head of N.W. Ayer & Son, one of the leading advertising agencies of the time and Harry Oppenheimer, son of the DeBeers founder met in New York to decide on a strategy to sell diamonds. Out of this emerged a campaign that was to take the world by storm with a slogan that was soon on everyone’s lips. The diamond was made out to be exclusive and it was linked to moments of love. For a man, it was positioned as the ultimate gift of love that would seal a couple’s betrothal. For a woman, what came through every so insidiously was the fact that if she wasn’t getting proposed to with a diamond, there was something lacking. Advertisements also showed religious places in order to reinforce the sacred bonds of marriage. The first ad was done by a copywriter called Frances Gerety who scribbled the line under a picture of a couple on their honeymoon. This was what soon grew to become the famous DeBeers slogan.

Diamond Rings: Diamonds In America and Beyond

The campaign helped to established diamonds in America like nothing else could possible have. In a few years, most people in America had heard the slogan and engagements became synonymous with diamond engagement rings. In the 50s, the advertising company could proudly say that no engagement ritual was seen as complete without a diamond engagement ring. From here, the thrill of diamonds grew and spilled over its borders to far off places like Japan, Europe, the Middle East and beyond. It was this creative advertising and marketing thrust that spearheaded the diamond trade success and it is still going strong.

What is phenomenal about this was that it was generic selling – of course, the trade at that time was monopolistic but even so, DeBeers sold diamonds as dreams, not DeBeers diamonds and it has stood the test of time and been held up as one of the most successful marketing efforts of all time. Today the hard diamond is linked to all the softer emotions in us – love, tenderness, affection, hope. The slogan has been sung about, there have been films built around it, it is featured in so many stories and poems. Truly, they have made the diamond live forever.