adminser Few Americans proposed the precious gemstone in the 1930s. Everything changed when the internet was invented.
When I decided to propose to my now-wife, I thought about how it would be done. I didn’t know about how I would do it. A diamond ring seemed like the obvious–or even the best–choice. I also had the exact diamond. My grandfather had saved enough money in the 1950s to purchase a diamond ring to gift my grandmother. The stone was passed to me after he died. I re-set the diamond in a modern band, had the ring appraised, and then slipped it onto my fiancee’s fingers.
It was a moment of beauty, a gesture of love that spans generations. It was precisely what De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd. desired. It was a century-old marketing strategy made modern. It’s not just me. Three-quarters of American brides own a diamond engagement band, which currently costs an average of $4,000.
Sometimes, you come across an article that forces you to rethink your rote practices. Edward Jay Epstein’s Have you Ever Tried to Sold a Diamond? I was one of these articles. The investigative journalist and editor of the 1982 Atlanticstory deconstructed the “diamond invention,” which he called the “creation” of the notion that diamonds are valuable and rare and essential indicators of esteem.
This invention is relatively recent. Epstein attributes its origins to the discovery in late 19th-century South Africa of large diamond mines that provided diamonds for the first time on the world market. British businesspeople who ran the South African mines realized they could only protect their investments by maintaining the myth that diamonds are scarce and intrinsically valuable. This would also help to buoy the prices of diamonds. De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd., a South African-based cartel (now De Beers), was launched in 1888. It has been expanding its control over every aspect of the diamond trade for the past decades.
De Beers was able to manipulate not only supply but also demand. Harry Oppenheimer was the founder of De Beers. In 1938, during the Depression and war rumblings, Harry recruited N.W., a New York-based advertising agency. Ayer wanted to improve the image of diamonds in America, where giving diamond engagement rings has been gaining unevenly over the years but where the quality of the diamonds needed to be higher.
The price of diamonds was dropping around the globe. Ayer’s team set out to convince young men that diamonds, and only diamonds, were synonymous with romance and that the quality and size of a diamond were directly related to a man’s love and professional success. Young women had to be convinced that a diamond was the only way to end a courtship.
Ayer insinuated these messages into popular culture. It promoted an idea and not a brand or diamond:
An Ayer copywriter created the slogan “A Diamond Is Forever” in the late 1940s, just before my grandfather began hunting for his diamond ring. A diamond that lasts forever promises companionship and endless romance. A forever diamond can’t be resold. As Epstein’s article explains, resold diamonds can cause price fluctuations, reducing public confidence in diamonds’ intrinsic worth. Safe deposit boxes or grandchildren are safe places for diamonds.
De Beers’s wholesale sales of diamonds in the United States increased by $23 million to $ 2.1 billion between 1939 and 1979. The Company’s advertising budget increased from $200,000 to $10,000,000 per year over those 40 years.
De Beers and its marketing team proved to be highly adaptable in shaping public perceptions. A new campaign promoted the gifting of a second, smaller diamond to help couples reaffirm their love later in marriage. People were taught that the size of a diamond was not necessary, but the quality of the cut and the quality of the diamonds. Some gambits proved to be disastrous, such as the misadventure in the 1980s regarding the diamond rings for men.
De Beers was determined to expand internationally during the mid-1960s. It was quick to enter markets like Japan, where there was a deep-rooted tradition of arranged marriages that left little room for premarital love, let alone diamond rings. De Beers’ writer aggressively promoted Japanese diamond rings as symbols of “modern Western value.” Only 5% of Japanese betrothed women owned a diamond engagement band in 1967 when the campaign was launched. This figure rose to 60% by 1981, and Japan was the second-largest market for diamond engagement rings after the United States. De Beers conjured up “a billion-dollar-a-year diamond market in Japan, where matrimonial custom had survived feudal revolutions, world wars, industrialization, and even the American occupation,” Epstein marvels.
De Beers was more successful in Japan than in Brazil. In Japan, men and women wear a simple ring on their right hand when engaged. Once married, they switch to the call on their left hand. The social revolution that occurred in Japan in the 1970s could be happening in China today. According to a Citigroup report, more than 30% of Chinese brides now wear diamond engagement rings. In the 1990s, the practice was almost nonexistent in China.
A percentage of first-time brides who receive diamond engagement rings
Bain & Company’s 2014 report similarly stated that China, India, and the United States would drive most of the growth in diamond-jewelry usage over the next ten years. This is partly due to growing interest in engagement rings in India or China and steady interest in the U.S.
Forecast of Rough-Diamond Demand Through 2024
De Beers remains a crucial player in the diamond market, but it is more dominant than once. N.W., the copywriter behind “A Diamond Is Forever,” died in 1999. Three years later, Ayer was gone. The Diamond Invention continues to exist.
