Merrick, NY—While every year brings change, this year seems to have brought more than most. At The Centurion, we know the retail landscape continues to evolve. To help you start out 2016 on the best note, we asked a variety of industry experts for their take on dealing with these changes. Each replied from their own viewpoint, offering strategies and insights into the changes the year ahead will bring. Our fifth installment is a Q&A with diamond industry analyst Edahn Golan, via the research firm NPD Group.
The Centurion: You’ve written extensively about the declining desire for diamonds among millennial consumers. What do you think could turn that around and make them desire diamonds?
Edahn Golan: One of the largest social shifts we are seeing in recent years, which is coming at the expense of purchasing products, is the growing interest in experiences. Perhaps the industry should present a proposal, wedding and marriage as experiences, major life experiences – as opposed to events, and diamond rings positioned as ways of remembering and commemorating these experiences.
Centurion: Millennials are highly suspicious of advertising—yet they’re also highly motivated by it to purchase. Obviously the kind of advertising the industry has done over the years isn’t resonating with them, so what will?
Golan: I think they are simply less exposed to diamond industry marketing because there is a lot less of it. If the idea is to tap into “experiences” with life experiences, this of De Beers’ ‘Hands’ commercial from a few years ago. It’s an emotional piece that evoked the notion that life is an experience that we go through together.
At the same time, we always need a story. The right hand ring had a story: empowerment. The three stone ring had a story: past, present and future. Journey had a story: life is a journey we take together. All of them are great starting points for creating marketing for a new generation, which likes a good story just like every other generation did.
