It’s the time of year when endless commercials are on prime time talking about buying the "perfect" Christmas/holiday gifts for those we love and our choices are endless. We can buy a new Lexus, complete with bow to match the size of the car. If this is your choice to prove how deep your love goes, you can choose a Lexus that not only keeps your chosen drink hot or cold, but will parallel park itself (for an additional $3,815)!
Another way of showing your deep feelings for your loved ones at this warm and nostalgic time of year is to buy him/her/them a nice cruise. You can choose from Carnival, Disney, Holland, Alaska, or Jamaica, just to name a few. (There’s a laundry list here, if you’re so inclined. I really like this ad for Carnival, though, because it works in the whole holiday guilt theme that I’ve come to love:
"It's expensive, yes -- but if you've got the money and the love in your heart -- there's almost nothing better than this." (Emphasis mine.)
And if you’re like me, nothing touches the sub-cockle area of my heart like people making me feel guilty for not spending enough money on a gift for someone I care for dearly. It’s right up there with Currier and Ives, a warm fire burning in the hearth, hot chocolate with marshmallows, and Nat King Cole singing The Christmas Song.
Which brings me to the point of this whole sarcastic diary: my very favorite Christmas theme . . . diamonds. Who hasn’t heard it? "Diamonds are forever." And don’t you want your lover, spouse, loved one to know that you’re going to love them forever? Who doesn’t right? Well, if you don’t give them diamonds, how in the hell are they suppose to believe you? Those three precious words, "I love you" mean absolutely nothing unless you back it up with a diamond. And let’s not leave it at just that, even if your loved ones believe you love them, how is the whole world going to believe you do if your loved one doesn’t have any diamonds to prove to the world that you love them?? You don’t care? Well, according to this taken from the Diamond Trading Company’s 2002/2003 ad campaign, which appeared on billboards, buses, bus shelters and about a gazillion other prominent locations, you damn well should:
Geez, what kind of jerk are you (yea, me too), anyway?? Don’t you know anything, Man??? (Guess not. . . sigh.)
Diamonds . . . a girl's best friend, right? Well, De Beers would like you to believe that, considering they control 75% of the diamond market.
I hate being manipulated, don’t you? I like freedom of choice, and hate being deceived. Just like most married folks, I thought my small (one quarter carat) diamond engagement ring was priceless beyond compare. My fiancé (husband now) went out and spent his hard earned money on something that was invaluable and far beyond his means at that time. What could be more of an expression of love? Well, he was deceived as were many of us it seems and deliberately so.
Prior to 1930, diamonds were rarely given as engagement rings. Opals, rubies, sapphires and turquoise were thought to be much more exotic expressions of love. It’s not like diamonds are all that rare; that honor goes to rubies. So just how did diamonds gain this covetous position in the world of gems?
In 1938, Harry Oppenheimer, son of the founder of the company that would become the most successful cartel of the twentieth century - De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd., met with the president of N.W. Ayer & Son advertising agency, Gerold M. Lauck, and the rest is history.
In 1947, the slogan "A Diamond is Forever" was born. So brilliant was this ad campaign by N.W. Ayer & Son, that in 2000 the prestigious Advertising Age Magazine named the ad campaign the slogan of the 20th century, in their special 150-page issue published January, 1999.
N.W. Ayer & Son and Oppenheimer, encouraged by his bankers, sought to reverse the declining price of diamonds with a well-funded advertising campaign. Europeans were not yet taken with the idea of purchasing engagement rings featuring diamonds as the gemstone of choice. Moreover, impending war in Europe forced Oppenheimer and his bankers to promote their interests in their biggest market - the United States. At the time of the meeting with Ayer, three quarters of the cartel's diamonds were being sold there. But difficulties beleaguered this market too; diamonds were of an inferior quality to those sold in Europe, and prices were low - an average of $80 per stone.
So, in 1948, De Beers and Ayer & Son came up with a campaign to connect diamonds and romance.
Oppenheimer told Ayer that De Beers had not approached any other agencies and that if Ayer's plan was accepted, it would become the exclusive agency for promoting De Beers' interests in the United States. This shrewd tactic proved to be a strong motivating factor for N.W. Ayer, and after extensive research, the agency proposed a campaign to "channel American spending toward larger and more expensive diamonds".
To achieve this goal, Ayer further recommended strengthening the association of diamonds with romance. Young men, who purchased 90% of engagement rings, would be bombarded with the idea that diamonds were the gift of love. The first campaign aimed at men was launched in 1939 emphasizing the male's business savvy. Women, too, would be targeted with the idea that no courtship would be complete without a sparkling diamond. Famous houses of worship were featured in follow up advertisements, establishing a link between diamonds and the sacred tradition of a religious wedding.
And in later ads, De Beers told consumers that they should hold onto their diamonds and pass them on as heirlooms . . . and it worked! How nice for De Beers considering this eliminated the aftermarket for diamonds and furthered their control of the market; if people didn’t sell their diamonds back to jewelers or to other people, the demand for new diamonds would increase . . . and it did!
In 1979, wholesale diamond sales reached $2.1 billion compared to the paltry $23 million in 1939, and in 2002, sales had reach $5.15 billion. A sweet increase, wouldn’t you agree? The fact is diamonds have no real resale or investment value. De Beers has seen to that. The steady price is a tool to prevent speculation in diamonds and no dealer will buy a diamond from you. The only place you can sell a diamond is a diamond purchasing center or a pawn shop, where you will only receive a small fraction of its original value. Or you could always see what those three guys who are perennially hanging around outside of Bob’s Mufflers and Body Piercing will offer you for them.
De Beers had N.W. Ayer & Sons working hard over the years to pull at our heartstrings to "make that money." From this excellent article in The Atlantic:
N. W. Ayer learned from an opinion poll it commissioned from the firm of Daniel Yankelovich, Inc. that the gift of a diamond contained an important element of surprise. "Approximately half of all diamond jewelry that the men have given and the women have received were given with zero participation or knowledge on the part of the woman recipient," the study pointed out. N. W Ayer analyzed this "surprise factor":
Women are in unanimous agreement that they want to be surprised with gifts.... They want, of course, to be surprised for the thrill of it. However, a deeper, more important reason lies behind this desire.... "freedom from guilt." Some of the women pointed out that if their husbands enlisted their help in purchasing a gift (like diamond jewelry), their practical nature would come to the fore and they would be compelled to object to the purchase.
Through a series of "projective" psychological questions, meant "to draw out a respondent's innermost feelings about diamond jewelry," the study attempted to examine further the semi-passive role played by women in receiving diamonds. The male-female roles seemed to resemble closely the sex relations in a Victorian novel. "Man plays the dominant, active role in the gift process. Woman's role is more subtle, more oblique, more enigmatic...." The woman seemed to believe there was something improper about receiving a diamond gift. Women spoke in interviews about large diamonds as "flashy, gaudy, overdone" and otherwise inappropriate. Yet the study found that "Buried in the negative attitudes ... lies what is probably the primary driving force for acquiring them. Diamonds are a traditional and conspicuous signal of achievement, status and success." It noted, for example, "A woman can easily feel that diamonds are 'vulgar' and still be highly enthusiastic about receiving diamond jewelry." The element of surprise, even if it is feigned, plays the same role of accommodating dissonance in accepting a diamond gift as it does in prime sexual seductions: it permits the woman to pretend that she has not actively participated in the decision. She thus retains both her innocence—and the diamond.
And so, it seems that the slogan should read, "Forever De Beers." Because of their marketers, publicists, and advertisers, they have changed the way the world perceives and values diamonds. Diamonds have become symbols of esteem, wealth, luxury and above all else, romance. How discomforting, considering they aren’t actually scarce and would fetch a price of $2 to $30 if put to industrial use.
In closing, I better find something similar to this:
under the tree from my hubby this year or I’ll know . . . he doesn’t love me. (I plan to wear it to his company’s annual Christmas soiree next year together with my Prada bag, Levi’s, and Chuck Taylor high tops. Yes, I plan to be the belle of the ball. 
)
And this diary doesn’t even touch on the atrocities committed so that De Beers can mine these overpriced and overvalued pieces of carbon. You can find these abominations in these disturbing diares by londonbear and dove.
Now, instead of running out and buying something for your dear ones that you’ve been deliberately coerced into buying and probably something that doesn’t fit into your budget or your income (the going rate for diamond engagement rings, according to A Current Affair broadcasted February 1, 2005, is now between two and three months salary, a convenient guideline set up by De Beers and jewelry merchants in the United States), go and tell your loved ones that you love them and act it, which doesn't necessarily have anything to do with spending money.
So you grab a piece of something
That you think is gonna last
You wouldn't know a diamond
If you held it in your hand
The things you think are precious
I can't understand
*Steely Dan – Reelin’ in the Years - 1972
