Tamsen Webster breaks down De Beers' 1947 campaign "A diamond is forever" and how it rewired what people thought diamonds meant. The slogan didn't just sell stones. It changed the entire market by shifting diamonds from a commodity into a symbol of eternal love.
How many of you out there are married, have been married, or engaged? And of you, for how many of you was a diamond part of the deal? Have you ever asked yourself, why a diamond? And who told you to buy one? Well, the answer comes to one of the most perfect red threads that's out there. I'm Tamsen Webster of TamsenWebster.com, and that's what we're talking about this week on Find the Red Thread. So why did you buy a diamond or want to receive one? Because you, I'm going to guess, wanted to give or receive a symbol of the commitment you were about to make. And because there was this idea out there that a diamond is forever, suddenly it meant that not just any ring would do. It had to be a specific kind of ring. And since you wanted the commitment to be forever, you wanted a diamond ring. So there we go. I have a goal, a problem, an idea, and all of a sudden, without any force from an outside company, except for a little tiny tagline, A diamond is forever. I've thought, you've thought, the world has thought differently about diamonds and diamond engagement rings ever since. And if you listened carefully there, you would have heard the red thread behind it. So let's back up a little bit. So in the early 1930s, De Beers, the diamond company, had a worldwide monopoly on diamonds. They still do. And that worldwide monopoly on diamonds meant that they could create a tension around the supply of diamonds. And that meant that that limited supply is one of the ways where they could create value around diamonds. Because I hate to break it to you, but diamonds in and of themselves don't have a lot of intrinsic value. If you've ever tried to resell a diamond, you'll know what I mean. They don't want you to resell a diamond because you— when you resell a diamond, then you are kind of keeping a diamond in circulation. They don't want that. So if they could only limit the value of diamonds so much by supply, Well then, being good economists, they realized that they could affect the value of diamonds by affecting demand. So how do they do that? How do they create a permanent shift in thinking or behavior around buying diamond rings when it wouldn't be very hard for people to discover that diamonds really aren't that valuable in and of themselves? Okay, well, this is important for us to know because a lot of times when we're trying to put an idea out there, we're not sure that there's a lot to build it on either, right? But we're still trying to create that permanent change in thinking or behavior. So, if we reconstruct a Red Thread behind that change, we can start to see another example out in the wild of how a Red Thread can be used to create that change in thinking and behavior that we're looking for. So let's think about that. Now, what was the goal of people wanting to get an engagement ring? Well, I think it's pretty simple. They want to give a symbol of their commitment. Now, the ring itself is a powerful symbol. There's references in the Bible even to why the ring is a beautiful and perfect symbol of— or the unending quality of somebody's love for somebody else. But De Beers wanted to make sure that they weren't just dealing with any kind of ring. They wanted people to really think about a specific kind of ring. So after the goal is this problem of perspective, this perspective they needed to shift, that it wasn't just the ring that mattered, it was the kind of ring that mattered. So how could they create the tension on that perspective? Well, by introducing an idea that made it impossible to ignore the kind of ring. And that idea came in the form of that brilliant tagline from 1947, "A diamond is forever." Now, the reason why that as a tagline is so brilliant is because they're not telling anybody to buy diamond rings. They're introducing an idea. That makes it impossible to ignore your previous perspective. Because if you agree that a diamond is forever, and like any good idea statement, it's pretty hard to disagree with that on its surface, then it's gonna be really hard for you to ignore that if you're trying to give a symbol that encapsulates your commitment to somebody else, that say, "No, I don't want the forever one," right? That's why it's so brilliant, because that goal, plus that perspective, plus that idea made it so that people had to think differently about the kind of rings they gave to each other. And that meant that starting in about 1947, diamonds took over as the engagement ring to give. Now, what's the lesson here for you? Well, the lesson here for you is multi-pronged. First, how powerful it can be to get a market to come to its own conclusion. Second part is understand that that getting a market to come to its own conclusion comes from getting individual people to come to that conclusion. We have to change individual minds. And the third takeaway from this is that those pieces of the red thread can work at both the individual level and the market level. And De Beers and A Diamond Is Forever is a perfect example of all of that. That's this week's episode of Find the Red Thread. I'm Tamsen Webster of TamsenWebster.com. If stories like this and information like this would be helpful to you, your team, or your company, I do a lot of speaking. I also conduct workshops on this, so if you're interested in that, please give me a ring or a shout-out or a contact through my contact form. You can find out all about that at TamsenWebster.com/speaking and contact me at TamsenWebster.com/contact. Contact. When you have a great idea, one that you think will be irresistible to other people, you know you need to spend some time with it, right? You need to focus on it, get some one-on-one attention, but you also want to make sure that you get the opinion of other people, and you want to make sure you actually do the work. Well, that is exactly what the Red Thread Weekend will do for you. What we try to do in the Red Thread Weekend is focus on on you and your idea. In a small group setting, never more than 8 people, we work with you on your idea one-on-one in front of the group, so you get not only that focused attention you want, but the opinion of other people that you need. You'll walk out not only with a crystal clear understanding of your idea and just how big it is, but also all the tools you need to sell it to other people, to talk about it to other people, and even to start outlining the talk itself. I hope I will see you at an upcoming Red Thread Weekend. Just go to redthreadweekend.com. Thank you.
