Note from the Publisher

Marketing

The basis of business is creating products and services that add value. While creating value is the foundation of any business, capturing value is the purpose of the business. If you can’t capture value, your business is not sustainable and will fail. If no one wants to vote for your product by paying you for it, your product and business will not survive.

No matter how good a product is, customers need to know what it is, how to get it, and what it costs. Even if you are the only supplier of water in the desert, people need to know where to find you. On a trip, you need to know where the next gas or charging station is. Communicating this information is the first base of marketing.

Marketing can grow much more sophisticated in many ways, but never forget the fundamental added value of the product. If the product does not add value, marketing cannot make it successful.

A new movie, Nothing Lasts Forever, says that diamonds are a lie. Is that true? How do diamonds add value? They have no utility. Is the only reason people buy diamonds because of the marketing? Can marketing alone create a product? Why do people buy diamonds?

What is the underlying universal need that diamonds fulfill? De Beers’ marketing positioned diamonds as the symbolic gift of commitment between a man and a woman. De Beers did not create the need for such a gift.

De Beers did not create sex, marriage or the need to link sexual commitment with a physical gift. The idea that you give something to someone when you commit to them predates diamonds. Whether cows in Botswana, jade in China, or gold in wedding bands, the need and desire to gift a physical product symbolizing commitment predates diamonds and was not created by marketing. Is a wedding ring a marketing gimmick? Is a wedding ring a lie?

Marketing did not create the added value of diamonds. The need to bundle sex and commitment did. Marketing did identify diamonds as the universally recognized symbol of romantic commitment, but not the underlying need for the gift of commitment that is fulfilled by diamonds.

The recent attacks against diamonds reflect a desire by some progressive elements of society to cancel commitment. They can’t bear the burden of commitment or true love, so they deny it.

Don’t worry about those who denigrate diamonds. They are afraid to believe that “Some Things Last Forever.” They don’t understand diamonds, and they are not up to diamonds.

Commitment is the basis of civilized society. It is the foundation of family.

It is the true meaning of diamonds.