Brilliant Earth Pulls Ad After Blue Nile Complaint

RAPAPORT… Brilliant Earth has removed a promotion from its advertising material after rival Blue Nile lodged a challenge with a regulatory body.

On its website and in other digital marketing, Brilliant Earth ran offers for “free diamond earrings” available for “one day only,” the National Advertising Division (NAD), part of self-regulator BBB National Programs, said in a statement last week.

This was misleading because the ads failed to disclose that the complimentary jewelry — when customers made purchases between $1,000 and $5,000 — contained lab-grown and not natural diamonds, Blue Nile argued, according to the NAD. The disclosure to which Brilliant Earth hyperlinked was “inadequate,” the regulator cited Blue Nile as saying. Blue Nile also challenged the phrase “one day only,” because the advertiser had run the offer numerous times in the previous months.

During the proceedings, Brilliant Earth informed NAD that it had “permanently discontinued” the offer, the regulator said in its full decision, dated April 19. The division did not review or rule on the claims in question, as it relied on Brilliant Earth’s word that it had removed them, the document added.

Brilliant Earth “believes that the challenged advertising claims were substantiated” but made a decision to cancel them voluntarily and permanently, the company said in a statement to the NAD. A spokesperson for the jeweler declined to comment further to Rapaport News.

A year ago, the Natural Diamond Council (NDC), which carries out category marketing for the industry, traded NAD challenges with Diamond Foundry. The NDC filed a complaint claiming the US-based lab-grown producer was not sufficiently disclosing the origin of its stones, resulting in the company receiving a rebuke from the watchdog. Diamond Foundry also lodged a complaint about the NDC’s environmental claims, leading the NAD to issue a warning to the council.

Image: A Brilliant Earth showroom. (Brilliant Earth)