De Beers

The De Beers Group is a Johannesburg- and London-based diamond mining and trading corporation. It has historically held a near-total monopoly in the diamond trade, although recent Israeli interests have captured 20% of the market. In 1994 De Beers was charged by the United States Justice Department with antitrust violations for conspiring to fix prices for industrial diamonds. On 14 July 2004 De Beers pleaded guilty to the charges and paid a $10 million fine. The plea has enabled De Beers to trade directly in the United States diamond market after years of acting through intermediaries. The US diamond market is the largest in the world, purchasing approximately $500 million in industrial stones and $60 billion in diamond jewelry annually.

Marketing

De Beers has proactively promoted diamonds as being symbolic of eternity and love, and therefore the ideal jewel for an engagement or wedding ring. Their famously successful advertising campaigns have included measures such as:

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• showing diamonds as wedding gifts in popular romance films
• publishing stories in magazines and newspapers which would emphasize the romantic value of diamonds and associate them with celebrities
• employing fashion designers and other trendsetters to promote the trend on radio and, later, television
• enlisting the British Royal Family to directly promote diamonds

This campaign was described by De Beers' PR agency N.W. Ayer & Son as "a new form of advertising which has been widely imitated ever since" with "no brand name to be impressed on the public mind. There was simply an idea—the eternal emotional value surrounding the diamond." Indeed, the campaign succeeded in reviving the American diamond market, which had been weakened by "competitive luxuries", and in opening new markets where none had existed before. In Japan, for example, diamonds were successfully promoted as a western symbol of status, which coincided with Japan's cultural opening after World War II. Japan, which had no diamond tradition before the De Beers campaign, is today the second largest market for retail diamonds.

Related Topics:
PR agency - N.W. Ayer & Son - Japan - World War II

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The slogan "A Diamond is Forever," invented by Ayer, is one of the most successful slogans in marketing history. Its purpose is to prevent the creation of a secondary market by dissuading women from selling the diamonds they have received and by discouraging them from buying diamonds which other women have owned. The consequence of this is that retailers can sell diamonds at a high price without competition from a secondary market, and it allows De Beers to maintain control of the diamond trade at wholesale level.

Related Topics:
Slogan - Secondary market

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This was incorporated in the James Bond film Diamonds are Forever where De Beers is directly referenced.

Related Topics:
James Bond - Diamonds are Forever

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