Funny thing, the marketplace. You think you’ve finally understood it after all these years and suddenly, you realise everything is not the way you thought.
Some of the biggest trade shows in the world today – especially the ones at Basel and Hong Kong – are dedicated to promoting business in both watches and jewellery simultaneously. But guess what a paper put out by the consultancy Gold Fields Mineral Services (GFMS), says? Watches are among jewellery’s principal competition!
What this paper also does is to highlight the changing perception of what consumers perceive as “value”. According to the paper, there is a distinct preference for perceived value rather than intrinsic value, going on to say that “some feel it is easier to sell branded steel rather than unbranded silver”.
Also, consumers are more willing to spend greater amounts on such things as design and fine workmanship rather than just the precious metal it is made of. This of course, worries GFMS, which is, after all, a precious metals consultancy. In fact, it lists diamonds and even semi-precious stones as “threats” to gold and silver.
For me, the report actually deconstructed the whole edifice we’ve built up around jewellery as something precious because of the tangible things like gold, silver and diamonds, that go into it.
The gem and jewellery industry tends to forget that what it actually sells are illusions of perception and intangibles such as the expression of emotion. These things need constant communication to the consumer.
The GFMS paper puts it rather inelegantly but accurately when it states that the “key reason for others’ success is greater advertising budgets”.
Christmas, the biggest jewellery sales period of the year by far, is just around the corner and I still haven’t seen any Christmas messages from the jewellery industry worth a second glance.
