An advertising campaign is forever

[cactuswren.livejournal.com]

This is the earliest "A Diamond Is Forever" ad I've been able to locate so far:



(Life, December 1950.  The painting, interestingly, is by the artist who designed the sets for Carl Th. Dreyer's silent masterpiece, The Passion of Joan of Arc.)

A bit over a year later, Raoul Dufy was the artist, but a diamond was still forever:


(Life, January 1952)


Another year and a half, and forever goes on:


(Life, July 1953.)

That autumn, a diamond was still forever but Salvador Dali apparently needed a paycheck:


(Life, November 1953.)

And in 1957, the campaign has apparently outlived the fame of Herbert Saslow, whoever he is:


(Life, July 1957)

What interests me is the intent behind these ads.  The De Beers cartel began the "A Diamond is Forever" campaign in 1947, with the specific intent of destroying the after-market for diamonds.  They didn't want diamonds to be a financial investment:  they wanted to maintain a monopoly, to be the sole source for diamonds.  As they in fact remained for many decades.  They used this campaign to establish in the public consciousness that a diamond wasn't money:  a diamond was emotion, was commitment.  You'll notice this recurring element in all these ads:  you're not just buying a diamond, this is your diamond.  That's why your diamond has to be bought from a jeweler representing De Beers.  It can't be an after-market diamond, a pawned diamond, a re-sold diamond, a used diamond.  "A diamond is forever" -- and you don't want your marriage represented by someone else's used, pawned, re-sold "forever," do you?

(I sometimes wonder whether that awful old country-western song "Golden Ring" wasn't commissioned by De Beers.)

Comments

[ms-hissyfit.livejournal.com]

Really interesting information about the background for the campaign. This is the sort of context that makes vintage ads so interesting for me. Thank you!

[meezergal.livejournal.com]

I would LOVE to have framed prints of the Dufy and the Connelly! (Sorry, Dali, in spite of art appreciation classes, I never grew fond of you.)

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

I love Dalí and so does my husband, but I don't think I'd want him setting the images the future of our marriage.

But then, I didn't want a diamond ring, either, mostly because of the ugly politics. Not only are most diamonds mined in third-world conditions approaching slave labor, they are marketed in a way that suggests that women require men to prove their love with expensive gifts, and men can display their wealth on the hands of their wives. That's all in addition to the way that De Beers has been artificially inflating the costs of diamond jewelry for decades, and continues to create new "needs" for diamonds.

Once I subtract myself from the picture, though, I can really admire their marketing savvy. One brilliant product they created in the 1960s was the Eternity Ring (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternity_ring), a band with small diamonds set all the way around. This was a clever way to use the smaller diamonds that had recently been found in abundance in what was then the Soviet Union. So the cartel invented a "tradition" of giving this new type of diamond ring, whose unending circle of jewels is seed to represent endless commitment throughout time, to commemorate an anniversary and get people to buy even more diamonds. Pretty clever.

[ms-hissyfit.livejournal.com]

That is deviously inventive! I followed the link and that is really interesting stuff. I especially like the slogan they quote: "She married you for richer or poorer. Let her know how it’s going."
Way to put on the pressure.

[pikkewyntjie.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting that Eternity Ring info. I had not heard of these and if I had heard of them in another context, I would have assumed it was what they called wedding rings in the LDS church or something like that.

[3cthelion.livejournal.com]

not to mention that diamonds aren't forever. diamond is not the most stable form of carbon - it's actually graphite that will last the longest under thermodynamic stress.

so remember, sweethearts, nothing says "i love you" like the gift of pencil lead.

[sovereignann.livejournal.com]

This is sooooo long but terribly interesting. It is also older than some of the people who post here, I'm sure, but this talks about DeBeers and the history of this campaign and how hard they fought to keep this cartel going. I of course was mostly interested in the advertising stuff and my eyes got a little glazed over a few pages in, but OMG you guys, they had high school assemblies to capture a whole generation of women.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-tried-to-sell-a-diamond/4575/1/

[cactuswren.livejournal.com]

That's a great article and absolutely fascinating. Bolding mine:

It is conservatively estimated that the public holds more than 500 million carats of gem diamonds, which is more than fifty times the number of gem diamonds produced by the diamond cartel in any given year. Since the quantity of diamonds needed for engagement rings and other jewelry each year is satisfied by the production from the world's mines, this half-billion-carat supply of diamonds must be prevented from ever being put on the market. The moment a significant portion of the public begins selling diamonds from this inventory, the price of diamonds cannot be sustained. For the diamond invention to survive, the public must be inhibited from ever parting with its diamonds.

In developing a strategy for De Beers in 1953, N. W. Ayer said: "In our opinion old diamonds are in 'safe hands' only when widely dispersed and held by individuals as cherished possessions valued far above their market price." As far as De Beers and N. W. Ayer were concerned, "safe hands" belonged to those women psychologically conditioned never to sell their diamonds....

[pikkewyntjie.livejournal.com]

These ads are really beautiful. That pesky apartheid? Yeah, totally worth it!

[urbantravels.livejournal.com]

Beautiful artwork, but my lord what poisonous messages - not just about diamonds about about the holy powers of LUUUUUUUV.

If I read too much of that crap I'd be convinced that I'd have to off myself if (1) nobody ever gave me a diamond or (2) I lost my diamond or (3) I got divorced. Any of those events would NULLIFY MY WHOLE LIFE. Gawd.

[cactuswren.livejournal.com]

There was a story arc in the comic strip Family Circus, and I only know this because it was reprinted in a book in my childhood, that started with the father coming home to find all his children sitting dolefully on the front stoop: their mother has shut them out of the house while she searches for the diamond that has fallen out of her engagement ring. (Those damned fragile Tiffany settings!) For at least a week, the strip's "action" -- such as it was, then or ever -- was devoted entirely to the search for "Mommy's diamond", and to how upset she was at losing it. Not just because it was an expensive item, but because of its symbolic value: acknowledging it as lost would be tantamount to calling her marriage disposable, something to be replaced with a simple shopping trip.

(And yes, the arc ended with a strip captioned, "Mommy, I just took something shiny out of PJ's mouth and it's your diamond!" Which is intriguingly symbolic in itself, although I doubt Keane intended to suggest that his characters' marriage was being devoured by their children.)

[urbantravels.livejournal.com]

No kidding - this happened to my mom in real life. She lost her diamond out of her engagement ring - after my parents had been separated for a while but before they were actually divorced, so it was kind of extra ironically emotional for her. She tore the house up looking for it and was VERY upset, but we never found the diamond.

This is one of the reasons I don't ever want expensive jewelry, diamonds or otherwise - I don't want the responsibility of loss or damage. A diversified investment portfolio, on the other hand, is a girl's best friend.