{"id":642436,"date":"2013-02-14T11:51:53","date_gmt":"2013-02-14T16:51:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/serkadis.com\/index\/?guid=7f0fabacbf844dee926f3f186b1c36b8"},"modified":"2013-02-14T16:48:51","modified_gmt":"2013-02-14T21:48:51","slug":"why-nauseating-diamond-ads-are-here-to-stay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/642436","title":{"rendered":"Why Nauseating Diamond Ads Are Here to Stay"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/static2.hbr.org\/hbr\/hbreditors\/flatmm\/hed\/20130214_6.jpg\" class=\"pageFeatureImage\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Between Thanksgiving and Valentine&#8217;s Day, U.S. television is replete with two things: football and jewelry ads. They operate seamlessly, the &#8220;Every Kiss Begins with Kay&#8221; cadence or &#8220;He went to Jared!&#8221; catchphrase blasting during almost every NFL commercial break (trust me, I counted). <\/p>\n<p>No matter the brand, each advertisement leans on the same sluggishly tired trope: the surprised female jewelry recipient &#8212; one half of a uniformly heterosexual couple &#8212; lured into a romantic adventure. <em>She receives something shiny. She gasps!<\/em> <\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"580\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_fYXa_W6OXk\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>As we begin our month-long <a href=\"http:\/\/hbr.org\/special-collections\/insight\/the-future-of-advertising\">Insight Center on the future of advertising<\/a>, which features the cutting-edge of the industry, these commercials raise an important counterperspective about marketing: when is innovation in advertising a detriment? <\/p>\n<p>After all, people are still buying jewelry from the brands that make the most irritating ads: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/2013\/01\/08\/us-signet-results-idUSBRE9070OH20130108\">over the holidays<\/a>, sales at Sterling Jewelers stores, which include Kay and Jared, did rise 4.7%. And the share price at Signet Jewelers, the stores&#8217; parent company, rose by $4.87. <\/p>\n<p>Even as diamond retail itself has evolved &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/cs\/2012\/12\/blue_niles_cheaper_diamonds_do.html\">with low-cost entrants like Blue Nile<\/a> potentially threatening established retailers like Tiffany &#8212; innovators and incumbents alike still tell the same story. And they even stick to the same places: Tiffany has locked down the top right corner of page 3 in the <em>New York Times<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/05\/18\/business\/media\/18carr.html?pagewanted=all&#038;_r=0\">for more than 100 years<\/a>. If a diamond is forever, so, it seems, are the advertisements for them. <\/p>\n<p>Brands from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/cartier\">Cartier<\/a> to Kay still use the same formula that De Beers and the N.W. Ayer ad agency came up with in the 1970s. As highlighted in Edward Jay Epstein&#8217;s classic 1982 <em>Atlantic<\/em> article, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/print\/1982\/02\/have-you-ever-tried-to-sell-a-diamond\/304575\/\">Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?<\/a>&#8221; De Beers, faced with fluctuating global prices and a &#8220;buy smaller diamonds&#8221; ad campaign that went a little too well, ordered their ad agency to reframe the discussion. N.W. Ayer was charged with coming up with a campaign that would tie value to a ring containing a good-sized rock. <\/p>\n<p>The agency&#8217;s research found that an element of surprise was key, but not because women needed to be swept off their feet. Rather, they felt guilty about buying something so &#8220;flashy, gaudy, overdone.&#8221; But if a man did the dirty work, leaving women in the &#8220;the semi-passive role&#8221; akin to &#8220;sex relations in a Victorian novel,&#8221; a woman &#8220;can easily feel that diamonds are &#8216;vulgar&#8217; and still be highly enthusiastic about receiving diamond jewelry.&#8221; In N.W. Ayer&#8217;s crude argument, your lady just has to lie there.  <\/p>\n<p>On the flip side, men, as the main purchasers of diamond rings, needed to be &#8220;moved to part with earnings not by the value, aesthetics, or tradition of diamonds but by the expectation that a &#8216;gift of love&#8217; would enhance his standing in the eyes of a woman.&#8221; And women could feel guiltless about wearing a giant diamond, as long as the ring was a symbol of her &#8220;status and achievements&#8221; &#8212; that is, landing a man who could afford to surprise her. In essence, N.W. Ayers and De Beers needed to nudge men and women into a tacit agreement to value emotion over market price. <\/p>\n<p>It worked: the element of &#8220;surprise,&#8221; according to Epstein, &#8220;helped De Beers expand its sales of diamonds in the United States to more than $2.1 billion, at the wholesale level, compared with a mere $23 million in 1939.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>More than 30 years later, the &#8220;gasp&#8221; is evidence that this trope is alive and well. And it&#8217;s not just male ring-purchasers who have bought in to the storyline: according to a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tampabay.com\/news\/business\/retail\/sending-flowers-on-valentines-day-shouldnt-be-done-on-a-whim\/1274781\">recent <em>Tampa Bay Times<\/em> article<\/a>, 53 percent of women said they would end a relationship if they didn&#8217;t receive a gift on Valentine&#8217;s Day. And in a David&#8217;s Bridal survey, <a href=\"http:\/\/jezebel.com\/5984026\/your-giant-engagement-ring-looks-tacky-and-makes-me-want-to-rob-you?popular=true\">57% of brides wished their rocks were bigger<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The problem with product narratives that place a high value on feelings is that, when the thing is actually used (or worn), the value diminishes dramatically. The value of your diamond &#8212; i.e. the two months of salary you shelled out for it &#8212; suddently disappears. This is why it&#8217;s so hard to sell old diamonds, why my &#8220;estate&#8221; engagement ring was a heck of a bargain, and why irritating jewelry advertising is here to stay. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Diamonds, without their association to romance, cannot be self-sustaining,&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/freerange.com\/studio\/team\/jonah\">Jonah Sachs<\/a>, the author of the book <em><a href=\"http:\/\/hbr.org\/product\/winning-the-story-wars-why-those-who-tell-and-live\/an\/10786E-KND-ENG?Ntt=Jonah+Sachs\">Winning the Story Wars<\/a><\/em>, told me. He and I both looked for examples of rebellious diamond marketing, to no avail. <\/p>\n<p>In fact, when companies do try to slightly alter the narrative to make more out of this storytelling tradition, consumers get creeped out. This ad for Kay struck many viewers as  <a href=\"http:\/\/jezebel.com\/5410070\/kay-jewelers-has-decided-to-give-us-the-creepiest-commercial-of-all-time-for-the-holidays\">more suitable for an episode of <em>Criminal Minds<\/em><\/a> than as an ad for romance:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"580\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ltA50HKyM14\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>There <em>are <\/em>a few television ads out there that don&#8217;t use any storyline at all. For instance, this is what marketing diamonds as things &#8212; not emotions &#8212; really looks like:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"580\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sMoxaCmjFX0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>But in a sense, even low-budget spots like this one depend on the diamond-as-surprise-love-gift narrative inflated by De Beers. Because diamonds, as evidenced by the Jewelry Exchange&#8217;s sparkling handfuls, are actually <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cracked.com\/article_19367_6-companies-that-rigged-game-and-changed-world.html\">quite common<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"insight-center\">\n<div class=\"insight-center-head\" style=\"font-size:18px; line-height:1.1em;\">The Future of Advertising<br \/><span style=\"font-size:14px;\">An HBR Insight Center<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"insight-center-img\">\n        <A HREF=\"http:\/\/hbr.org\/special-collections\/insight\/the-future-of-advertising\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/hbr.org\/hbrg-main\/resources\/images\/special-collections\/insight\/the-future-of-advertising\/357x215-0213-insightcenter-mainpage.jpg\"><\/A>\n    <\/div>\n<div class=\"insight-center-list\">\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/hbr\/hbreditors\/2013\/02\/a_unique_approach_to_marketing_coca_cola_in_hong_kong.html\">A Unique Approach to Marketing Coca-Cola in Hong Kong<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/cs\/2013\/02\/we_need_a_better_definition_of.html\">We Need a Better Definition of &#8220;Native Advertising&#8221;<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/hbr\/hbreditors\/2013\/02\/when_advertising_meets_the_mem.html\">When Advertising Meets the Meme<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/cs\/2013\/02\/stop_selling_ads_and_do_someth.html\">Stop Selling Ads and Do Something Useful<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.harvardbusiness.org\/~ff\/harvardbusiness?a=88BPHOz8ros:QOmAhsmlq1E:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/harvardbusiness?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.harvardbusiness.org\/~ff\/harvardbusiness?a=88BPHOz8ros:QOmAhsmlq1E:bcOpcFrp8Mo\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/harvardbusiness?d=bcOpcFrp8Mo\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/harvardbusiness\/~4\/88BPHOz8ros\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Between Thanksgiving and Valentine&#8217;s Day, U.S. television is replete with two things: football and jewelry ads. They operate seamlessly, the &#8220;Every Kiss Begins with Kay&#8221; cadence or &#8220;He went to Jared!&#8221; catchphrase blasting during almost every NFL commercial break (trust me, I counted). No matter the brand, each advertisement leans on the same sluggishly tired [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7371,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-642436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7371"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642436\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}