In new campaign, GIA emphasizes emotion over education

Michelle Graff

The untitled marketing campaign tells consumers GIA has graded some of the most important diamonds in the world, including theirs.

The Gemological Institute of America has rolled out a new consumer marketing campaign, its first in more than a decade.

The digital-first, video-centric campaign, which has no formal title, launched [the week of November 29] and will run across three markets—the United States, China, and India—into 2022.

It will emphasize GIA’s expertise in diamond grading while also tapping into the emotion inherent in every diamond jewelry purchase.

That emotional element, GIA Chief Marketing Officer Mark Buntz said in in an interview [the week of November 29], was missing in GIA’s previous campaign, which focused on educating consumers about the four Cs.

We have not focused on the human connection,” he said. “We have not really tied into that love and trust and confidence that we, as GIA, are trying to bring to the marketplace.”

The campaign’s first U.S. video features a couple, and it opens by letting consumers know the lab is “trusted to grade some of the rarest, most precious diamonds in the world,” like the Hope Diamond and the Taylor-Burton, as well as “the most valuable one of all”—the one they receive as an engagement ring.

New videos and display ads featuring different couples and single people buying jewelry for themselves will continue to roll out into 2022.

It’s a big part of our industry today and we want to celebrate that,” Buntz said of self-purchasers. “We want to shine a light on that.”

Buntz said the marketing campaign was shot over two days in Los Angeles and features 12 different couples as well as seven self-purchasers, all of whom will be divided up among the campaign’s three markets.

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Source National Jeweler