Modern Jewelry Trends

The jewelry industry benefits from the marketing of gold, platinum, and now even palladium. Today silver also jumped into the metal-marketing mix. The Silver Institute, a non-profit association of silver miners, refiners, bullion suppliers, manufacturers, and other silver industry members announced it would fund a new campaign to market silver jewelry to consumers. The silver marketing initiative will combine what the institute describes as a “media and grassroots campaign” to increase awareness and encourage consumers to buy sterling silver jewelry. Although it’s not clear if that will include consumer advertising, the Silver Institute is following gold’s lead in one way: it has hired Michael Barlerin Associates as a marketing consultant. Barlerin was CEO, Americas of World Gold Council for 15 years. Why silver, why now? The institute has funded advertising in the past but has been largely absent from all jewelry industry marketing or PR for years. “The consensus of our executive committee is that the time is right to introduce an industry-supported marketing program in the U.S., with the initial focus being on silver jewelry,” explains Michael DiRienzo, the institute’s executive director. With silver recently named the top jewelry trend by Modern Jeweler, we do agree that the timing couldn’t be better.

It’s official: “green” jewelry has hit the mainstream. Wal-Mart Stores announced today that it will stock a new brand of sustainable jewelry that will be tracked from mine to market. The new exclusive Love, Earth brand, which includes a $69 sterling silver necklace and $48 hoop earrings, will be sold in Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, and online. A customer who buys the jewelry can visit www.loveearthinfo.com to see where their particular piece of jewelry was mined and learn about the suppliers’ environmental programs. To make this program a reality, Wal-Mart is working with United States metal mines: a first. Previous environmental brands have used recycled precious metals. The project partners include global mining giant Rio Tinto, Newmont Mining Corporation, and Aurafin, a jewelry distributor that is part of the Richline Group. The project will initially focus on gold and silver jewelry using metal from Rio Tinto’s Kennecott Utah Copper Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah, the largest man-made excavation in the world. Every year, in addition to 300,000 tons of copper, Kennecott produces 500,000 ounces of gold and 4 million ounces of silver. Newmont will provide gold from its Nevada mines. The retailer says it plans to add diamond jewelry to the project, no doubt through Rio Tinto’s diamond mining operations. Wal-Mart says its goal is to eventually have all its jewelry meet sustainability and environmental standards, starting with 10 percent of all jewelry by 2010. Although this is the first large project of its kind, consider the gauntlet thrown. With the world’s largest jewelry retailer now pressuring all suppliers for details on standards and sourcing, other retailers will be sure to follow.

Maybe “luxury” and “MySpace” aren’t oxymorons after all. Cartier just launched an extensive global advertising campaign in eight languages on MySpace. True, the Cartier profile is a bit more sophisticated than most on the largest online repository of tacky wallpaper. And it also offers something for people who aren’t in the market for jewelry: free downloads of songs from international artists like Lou Reed and Marion Cotillard rather than a garage band on a special minisite. As Advertising Age points out in its article MySpace Signs Up Glam New Member Cartier, 40 percent of MySpace members are in other countries. The social networking site is a remarkably effective way to reach a global audience at a relatively low cost (especially now that the dollar is so weak). Cartier is probably paying about $5 per thousand. Yes, but are those MySpace thousands really an audience of potential jewelry buyers? “There’s this misperception in the market about MySpace being a youth site, a site for teens,” Travis Katz, managing director-international operations for MySpace told Advertising Age. “But 85% of our audience in the U.S. is over 18, and 40% of all moms in U.S. are on MySpace.” He claims that MySpace reaches more people making $100,000-plus than arch nemesis Facebook. If this works out for Cartier, look for other jewelry companies with global ambitions, particularly bridal brands, to follow suit.