Modern Jewelry Trends

For retail jewelry store owners, one of the most frustrating aspects of competing with online retailers is that many do not have to collect sales tax. Especially on high-ticket items, the difference sales tax makes in the consumer’s final price can be significant. If you are in favor of requiring online retailers to collect sales tax, you will soon have a chance to have your voice heard by someone who can make a difference. Jewelers of America has invited Representative Charles Rangel, the powerful chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, to speak at the opening of the JA Show next Sunday morning. Representative Rangel, who JA has been lobbying on a proposed bill to allow individual states to impose sales taxes on e-commerce sales to their residents, will be touring the show and speaking to members of the trade afterwards.

Last week I talked about the successful but not-so-tasteful positioning of Steven Singer, the retailer in Philadelphia that folks love to hate. Another jewelry retailer in Michigan has attracted media attention not for his advertising but for a rather unusual security system: live scorpions in his display cases. Scott Ward of South Lyon Watch & Jewelry in South Lyon, Michigan was featured on WDIV, his local TV station and online on MSN.com explaining his somewhat high-maintenance system. “I’d think twice before I’d smash the glass and stick my hand in a case with a bunch of outraged scorpions,” Ward says. “It cuts down on the chance of a smash and grab.” Drama like this is bound to get attention and is a good way to get a lot of coverage for a special exhibit. At the Sri Lankan Gem Show in 1991, a 393-carat star sapphire, one of the world’s largest, was displayed in a case containing a king cobra. The snake-enhanced security was covered in the International Herald Tribune as well as national media. And today, it’s even easier to spread the news. This kind of video clip, whether produced by a TV station or done in house and uploaded to You Tube, can be pretty effective viral marketing. Of course, like Steven Singer’s style, it has to be appropriate for your target market. Ward says it has definitely increased his traffic although he hasn’t yet seen a boost in sales.

By now everyone knows that Google is an affordable way to easily buy ads online. You set a budget, pick your keywords, and pay only when someone clicks on your ad. But you may not know that you can now use Google to buy newspaper ads too. The new Google Print Ads service allows you to easily book ads online in your choice of more than 200 newspapers. Basically, the online giant is automating the process of buying the remnant space that most newspapers have left over when they reach deadline each day. Here’s how it works: You select the newspaper or newspapers you are interested in, select the ad size, day of the week and section, and you’ll see the rate card price for the ad. You can then submit a bid for that space. The newspaper can accept or reject your bid. If they reject it, they can tell you why and you can choose whether to bid again. The program would be particularly convenient for jewelry and watch brands who want to have a presence in newspapers in several different markets. Using Google ads allows you to maximize your budget, looking at the cost per thousand (CPM) of each newspaper, and you only have to deal with one bill. Because you can upload a different ad for each newspaper, it would also be handy for small chains and for brands who want to support important retail customers in several markets when launching a new product. Interestingly, the list of advertisers now using the service includes a lot of big online retailers. Wouldn’t it be ironic if Google and the e-commerce companies help revive growth in newspaper advertising? If all this sounds intriguing, you might want to give it a try before August 31. If you publish a newspaper ad before that deadline, you’ll receive up to $1,000 in credit toward a future Google Print Ads campaign.

Newlywed Tony Parker, NBA point guard from the San Antonio Spurs, perhaps now best known as Mr Eva Longoria, is the new spokesperson for IWC Schaffhausen watches. It’s quite a coup for the high-end watch brand. Adorning a Desperate Househusband is kind of a surprise for IWC, though. Its strength is in well-crafted understated classic styles. Contrast the IWC Portuguese Chrono-Automatic with the watch Eva gave Tony as a wedding present: a Piaget with a huge pave diamond number nine on the face. Does this mean the wedding present gets thrown in a drawer? I’m sure his contract doesn’t allow him to wear other brands. What does Eva think about that? And does Oceanaut regret giving the couple his and hers Oceanaut Pacha Cobra watches which will clearly now not be photographed on the famous wrists? Whew, the plot is getting complicated. Maybe these two should get their own show: Desperate Product Placement.

You’ve heard of trophy wives, of course. A newer phenomenon is trophy couples: celebrities who wed in the spotlight, prompting a mad race to see whose jewelry, dresses, and other bridal booty will benefit from the reflected starlight. Desperate Housewife Eva Longoria and NBA star Tony Parker married at at Saint Germain L’Auxerrois Church in Paris in what is the celebrity wedding of the year so far, one of the couples tying the knot on lucky 7-7-07. So who won the bridal placement sweepstakes? If you follow these things, you have no doubt heard that the five-carat emerald cut engagement ring was designed by Jean Dousset, a jeweler from Paris who has now also opened a studio in Los Angeles, no doubt to capitalize on the publicity. (Dousset also designed the pendant with Parker’s number 9 that Longoria wears to Spurs games.) The wedding bands are Piaget, two turning Possession bands in 18K white gold. Hers has two rows of 80 brilliant-cut diamonds separated by a row of 27 square-cut diamonds. His is plain 18k white gold. At the couple’s request, an inscription was engraved inside both rings in French. The bride’ wore H.Stern’s half-a-million dollar Hebe Earrings in 18K Noble Gold with 17 carats of marquise, cushion, oval & round cut diamonds. The earrings were designed in collaboration between Eva’s longtime stylist and friend Robert Verdi and H.Stern Creative Director Roberto Stern. She also wore a $100,000 diamond bracelet from the H.Stern 2007 Red Carpet Collection to accent her Angel Sanchez gown. Hair Stylist Ken Paves added sparkle to Eva’s hair with H.Stern Zephyr and Geometric hair clips with with more than 15 carats of cognac diamonds. The gifts for the 13 bridesmaids were also H.Stern: Giardino earrings, each pair $1,000. The bride gave her husband a Piaget watch customized with a large pave diamond number nine on its face. Some of the gifts to the couple were also occasions for industry publicity. The happy couple received engraved his and her Oceanaut Pacha Cobra watches, set with 1.25 total carats of VS1, G-color diamonds, conflict-free, of course.

Jewelry ads are nothing if not predictable: a blend of romance, sparkle, and status. Classical music, evening gowns. But Philadelphia jeweler Steven Singer think those tasteful ads just blend into the background like wallpaper. So Singer’s ads are, well, not exactly tasteful. In fact, people complain about them all the time, which is exactly the way Singer likes it, especially if they end up buying from him anyway. The distinctive voice in a Singer ad is not unlike that of one of his favorite advertising venues: the Howard Stern show. He speaks to men in a funny, unpretentious, lowest-common denominator kind of way. Instead of the opera, he sponsors chicken wing eating contests. And he doesn’t have designer trunk shows in his store, he has an annual “World’s Largest Bubble Bath,” complete with swimsuit-clad “hot” female contestants looking for prize-filled eggs hidden in the four feet of foam that fills the store. But nothing got as much attention as his huge billboards that say “I hate Steven Singer!” that the store began using in 2004. The billboards lead you to his website, which includes ten reasons to hate Steven Singer (for all the jewelry he makes you buy for your wife.) In addition to communicating the unique personality of the store, the website does a good job of parodying the normal cliched jewelry website. (Although Steven Singer, like many luxury jewelers, doesn’t sell online.) Singer says the in-your-face style boosts his sales, now $6.5 million annually, about 15 to 20 percent each year. A fun beer-drinking jewelry store for guys may not be your niche, of course, but Steven Singer has an original and distinctive personality. A real strong brand can’t ever appeal to everyone. Does your store have its own voice? If it does, make sure you are communicating it clearly on the web, in your ads, and in your store and store events. If you don’t, you too might end up hating Steven Singer.