A long time ago, when I was a much younger man, I fell in love and decided that I wanted to get married. And of course when I proposed to my intended bride I had a diamond ring in hand to legitimize the proceedings.
With me being a student and of very limited means at the time, the ring contained only a very, very small diamond, but I was honoring the engagement ring tradition as best I could. Everybody knows that a marriage proposal has to include a diamond ring or it’s not a real proposal, right?
It was something that I really didn’t give much thought to at the time, and I’m sure I assumed that the engagement ring tradition must have stretched back for many generations. It turns out that assumption was quite wrong, and that the link between diamonds and “true love” is actually the product of a genius marketing campaign that took place a lot more recently than I would have imagined.
As late as the 1930s diamond engagement rings were mostly seen a luxury enjoyed only by the very wealthy. In fact, the market for diamonds at that time was anything but robust. Large deposits had been discovered in South Africa, and the De Beers Company (which has long held close to monopoly power in the diamond market) found itself sitting on a big pile of shiny rocks that most people felt they could easily live without.
That, of course, would never do. And so they decided to unleash the power of marketing on an unsuspecting public. They hired N.W. Ayer and Son, the first advertising agency in the US, to disabuse Americans of the notion that their lives could have meaning without diamonds.
The agency got some of the big shots in Hollywood to start sporting their product. Newspapers began running stories on how diamond rings symbolized romance. They even sent lecturers into high schools to embed the link between love and jewelry into impressionable teenage minds. The master stroke came in 1948 when a copywriter at Ayer (ironically a female who remained single all her life) came up with the now-ubiquitous slogan “A Diamond is Forever.”
The campaign succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. In the span of a few decades, marriage proposals and diamond rings had become inextricably linked and De Beers’ profit margin grew from $23 million in 1939 to $2.1 billion in 1979. And by 1988, a young man like me looking to take a wife had nary a second thought about obeying the dictates of De Beers and N.W. Ayers.
Spying the man behind the curtain like this always makes me a little uncomfortable. I have to wonder how many of the things I unthinkingly follow as long-standing cultural traditions are actually carefully manipulated schemes deigned to control my behavior and separate me from my hard-earned cash.
The whole concept of Valentine’s Day immediately comes to mind. And the gift-giving frenzy portion of the Christmas tradition was undoubtedly dreamed up in some company’s boardroom as well. Really anywhere you encounter the idea that there is a “tradition” that dictates that affection should be expressed via the purchase of goods is probably something that was invented on Madison Avenue and was likely unknown to your great-great grandparents.
Don’t get me wrong – I am a fan of capitalism and advertising is an important part of the system. It’s just that there is something creepy about realizing how big companies can manipulate our collective consciousness in regards to things like love, family, and tradition in such a calculated manner.
I’m beginning to understand why people get more cynical as they get older. Unbridled optimism only seems to grow tall in a field of blissful ignorance. And as the De Beers obviously realized, it is best fertilized with a healthy portion of, well, you know.
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