Print, digital ads to drive Forevermark

New York--For the first time in many years, the annual onslaught of holiday commercials won’t include any reminder from De Beers that a diamond is forever.

In fact, viewers won’t see any commercials from De Beers at all, as the diamond miner and marketer puts it power behind print and digital efforts to push its branded diamond, the Forevermark, which launched in the United States this year.

“Television is not an effective medium for this brand,” Forevermark Chief Marketing Officer Sally Morrison said recently in an interview with National Jeweler. She said TV ads are “wildly expensive” and speak to too broad of an audience for Forevermark, which is targeted at higher-income consumers.

“If you’re selling soap or cornflakes, it’s a very acceptable way to reach that audience,” she said of TV. “There are more effective ways to talk to [our customers.]”

Print is among those ways. Forevermark ads targeting women will appear in a number of top national women’s magazines beginning this month, titles including Elle, W, Town & Country, Cosmopolitan and Food & Wine.

In December, the balance of the advertising will shift into male-targeted magazines, such as Golf Digest, Wired and Men’s Health.

“It’s a strategy we’ve pursued for many years in print,” Morrison said of kicking off the campaign in female-targeted books then shifting to publications for men. “We know that we need to speak to those two groups in rather different ways.”

The ads geared toward women are designed to inspire them with a piece of jewelry while men are presented with a more rational argument for purchasing later in the season, the time when they generally begin thinking about what they want to buy their significant others for the holidays.

The campaign includes only one newspaper advertisement, a full-page color ad in The Wall Street Journal set to run throughout the month of December.

Billboard and radio are not part of De Beers’ Forevermark campaign, though Morrison notes that Forevermark-participating retailers are free to use either, as well as television, as part of any co-op campaigns they do locally. “We’re not convinced it’s the right thing for the brand, but if you’re a local retailer you have different considerations than a national brand. We’re not precluding them from buying television,” she said.

While the brand is eschewing a few more traditional advertising mediums, Forevermark will have a strong presence online, with Morrison calling the digital arena a “very effective way to get to our target.”