I found this ad for the De Beers diamond company in the New Yorker:
It uses the fascinating strategy of selling diamonds, an unnecessary luxury item made very expensive because the De Beers company has a monopoly on diamond mines and makes sure to keep supply artificially low, by criticizing consumerism based on buying unnecessary items. The message here is that we should stop buying so much unnecessary stuff…but that diamonds don’t fall into the category of unnecessary. Rather, diamonds are “better” things you should cherish “forever.” Of course, this anti-consumerist, buy-less-stuff message is also useful for De Beers because buying fewer things might be the only way, in a struggling economy, for people to save up to buy one or two more expensive items that can become family heirlooms to be “passed down for generations”…such as, say, diamonds.
Honestly, this is one of the most interesting ads I’ve seen in a while. I mean, it takes some nerve to sell luxury jewelry by telling people to stop wasting money on unimportant things.
UPDATE: Commenter Barbar pointed me to this interesting article in The Atlantic about the history of the diamond market.
Comments 15
Anonymous — December 8, 2008
I always thought jewellery such as real diamonds were a good investment considering that it's real value does not go through volatile changes whereas the nominal value does. I may be wrong.
Barbar — December 8, 2008
Anonymous:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/198202/diamond
Atlanta — December 8, 2008
Response to anonymous, first post, "I thought ... real diamonds were a good investment", read the wonderful article in the Atlantic, find out how extensively and deeply the diamond market is manipulated, and esp how impossible it is to sell your own diamonds at anything but a steep loss.
Diamonds « We all live downstream — December 8, 2008
[...] December 8, 2008 From Contexts (Sociological Images): DeBeer’s new strategy (a different approach to consumption) for selling diamonds [...]
Heather Leila — December 8, 2008
I saw this ad in the New Yorker and thought it would be a good post on this site! It's one of the first ads I've seen (not from a financial organization) that is giving a nod to the recession.
And no, diamonds, just like many luxury items, are not good investments. Gold and silver can always be melted down and remolded, but diamonds, once cut and sold to an individual always lose their value- which shouldn't make sense if they were really forever, but that's how we know DeBeers is lying to us.
XXLAshley — December 8, 2008
"Stuff you buy but never cherish" eh? Sounds like the diamond earrings my mom got me, for she assumed that I, like thousands of other women who see these ads, think that their lives would be more full with diamonds. Hell, if my boyfriend was to propose to me with a ring out of a gumball machine I wouldn't mind. Love>diamonds.
Silviu Gherman — December 8, 2008
Yeah, I really love this ad, it's so twisted... I bet the creative guy (or girl, for that mater) took pride in this. Being cynic is not enough, if you're not a clever one. or, as they say in Romania, the fool, if he's not a cheeky bastard, is not fool enough.
Interrobang — December 8, 2008
When I decided to go for the "fewer, better things" lifestyle, I bought things that are actually better and might appreciate in value. Diamonds don't cut it -- one of the few things they don't cut.
By the way, if for some perverse reason you actually like diamonds, it is possible to get DeBeers-free, conflict-free natural diamonds; they come from Canada. As far as I know, DeBeers hasn't been able to corner the market in Canadian diamonds, likely because Canadian mining interests are more ruthless than DeBeers is these days.
NL — December 9, 2008
My fiance and I are looking at engagement rings now and *everything* is diamond. Certainly there are other non-diamond rings that are nice, but the minute you say "engagement" the jewelry store clerk takes you to diamonds.
I've always said, "Skip the ring, just bring me the bloody arm of the kid who would have dug out the diamond."
grady — December 9, 2008
to NL: The arm would be a real conversation peice.
Camilla P — December 9, 2008
Cancleef and Arpels is messing around with similar connotations with their 'Sweet' Alhambra collection. Connecting mom/daughter jewellery to happiness
http://www.vancleef-arpels.com/en/van-cleef.html#/alhambra/
Is it just me or does the lady next to her 'daughter' look like she has a black eye? that shes covering up with way too much make-up, ahh yes the age old trope of jewelry forgiving domestic violence...
Sociological Images » TEDDY BEARS SUBSTITUTE FOR EMOTIONAL WORK — December 18, 2008
[...] of a stuffed animal to do your emotional work for you is in the same category as ad campaigns for diamonds and credit cards that promise viewers intimacy through purchase of the products. However, Vermont [...]
Anonymous — December 20, 2008
@ Anonymous: Try selling a diamond or returning one to a jewelry store and see what kind of value you get out of it. Not much, compared to how much was probably initially paid.
@ NL: Engagement rings are ownership symbols. Skip it.
The Politics of Romance: Part 3 - A diamond is for never « woman of (an)other color — February 13, 2009
[...] So we can see exactly how capitalism reinforced marriage as an unequal, gendered institution, as well as how advertising and marketing perpetuated already existing attitudes about romance and love. Thus, normalized narratives about the diamond ring were born, and we still see these advertisements today. [...]
Steph — April 5, 2010
This looks as if it could have come out of a newspaper during WWII- I remember seeing a similar one on this site from that era using similar logic to get people to buy washing machines and the like.