Instead of Waiting for Sales, Manufacture It
In 1940, a brilliant copywriter from the N.W. AYER advertising agency coined the slogan:
“A diamond is forever.”
You will soon find out why.
Diamonds can be shattered, chipped, and smashed into ash.
Brilliant marketers don’t want you to know that part of the story, because if they consistently tell you that diamonds are forever, you will believe it.
If you don’t manufacture consent and demand for your product or service, nobody will.
The last lesson is that the human mind is very malleable.
You can shape public perception about your personal and corporate brand through ads, PR, and content.
They also tell you it’s forever so that you don’t resell it.
Notice people pass their diamonds to their children.
In the words of our own Chimamanda Adichie,
“Sometimes silence makes a lie begin to take a shimmer of truth.”
This is because repetition is indistinguishable from truth.
Manufacturing Demand for a Product
The concept of associating romance or marital engagement with a diamond ring was burnished into our souls by an advertising company called N.W. AYER.
In 1938, Harry Oppenheimer, the son of the founder of De Beers (the cartel that controls the diamond trade around the world), engaged the services of an American-based advertising company — N.W. AYER.
The purpose of the advertising brief was to stimulate demand and sales of diamonds in the USA, because at that time, sales were slow.
(Remember, this was during the Great Depression.)
The mission was to mold people’s perception that a man’s engagement to the love of his life is not complete until he gives her a diamond ring as a symbol of his everlasting love.
Executing the Ad Campaign
N.W. AYER brilliantly integrated this mission in every nook and cranny of culture. This was how they did it:
Movie stars wore them in magazines and on TV (these are people we would call influencers today) — this is the strategy I call U.G.C (User Generated Content)
Actors wore them in movie scenes to profess their love
Sports personalities wore them
Royalty wore them
The purpose was to successfully link romance, wealth, and power to diamonds.
The Result
Between 1939 and 1979, De Beers Consolidated Mines LTD’s diamond sales grew from $23 Million to $2.1 Billion.
The Lesson for All of Us
Customers usually don’t know what they want until they see it.
This is why consistent messaging through adverts, content, and promotions is very important.
Your content can shape perception.
If you’re serious about selling your product or service, you must learn how to manufacture demand for it — just like the diamond industry did.
That’s what I’ll show you in my upcoming 5-Day Make Sales Challenge.
We start May 1st. Join now by clicking on the link below