Janus Thinking

This blog post, and the article in The Times which it references, point to an interesting question:

Are luxury restaurant brands diluted when they open additional ‘branches’?

It works for fashion retail — but then it could be argued that the skill in fashion is at the design stage rather than in the manufacturing. Of course, couture garments require highly skilled tailors, but the creative element, and the brand identity, are very much contained within the design.

Gordon Ramsay argues that the same is the case for restaurants:

“It’s the same f****** people who cook when I am there. A fine-dining restaurant is not one guy with a frying pan cooking everything. The chef stands at the pass and he conducts the chefs de partie who are preparing the fish, the meat, the sauces. When he is not there, he is there in spirit. He knows what is going on at almost every moment because he trained everyone.”

This might come as a surprise to those who go to Claridge’s and expect Ramsay to have graced the kitchen with his presence at some point during the preparation of their meal, but with a growing empire of restaurants, some as far away as Tokyo, the chances of this happening are increasingly slim.

Nevertheless, as he points out:

“If you close your eyes you will not be able to tell if I or any other well-known chef is there.”

Restaurant chains like Ramsay’s face an interesting communications challenge — how can they change the perception of the role of the chef from ‘cook’ to ‘designer’, and therefore avoid the risk of brand dilution?

A recent article on Diamond Vues points to the story of Louis Glick, which wanted to revitalise its range of yellow diamonds.

Acknowledging that customers have been “brainwashed” about the superiority of white diamonds, JFCD rejected the sentimental stereotypes of traditional jewelry marketing, instead identifying a new, fashion-oriented target market for the company’s stones, and naming them Blonde Diamonds®. The agency’s launch ad campaign featured glamorous dark-haired women and headlines such as “Meet a Natural Blonde” and “New Blonde in Town.”

The glamorous ad campaign certainly looks slick, and the tongue-in-cheek style complements the market to a certain extent — but isn’t there a danger that the negative connotations of the word ‘blonde’ might cause trouble?

‘Blonde’ has connotations of luxury, sophistication and passion that resonate with these women.

Is this really true? However:

The humor of the headlines caught their attention; the remarkable beauty of the jewelry brought them into the stores.

Getting the balance might have been hard, but it seems to have worked. Almost too well, it would seem:

We love the idea that our brand name is becoming the generic for yellow diamonds.

If the customer associates blonde diamonds with Blonde Diamonds®, then all is well; if, on the other hand, they merely assume that Blonde Diamonds® are just like any other blonde diamond, then Louis Glick’s efforts to promote coloured stones may have benefited its competitors as much as they had benefited themselves — the challenge for Louis Glick will be to make sure that their hard work pays off.

Pierce Mattie PR post some advice on how to choose the perfect diamond for your proposal.

They provide a good guide to the four Cs, too:

Color: Angara notes that diamonds are graded not on actual color, but on their lack of color. Diamonds range from colorless to light yellow and are assigned a letter, such as “D” for colorless.

Cut: This does not refer to a stone’s shape, but rather how its facets are cut. The better the cut, the more brilliant the shine. There are several grades of cuts and several standards that determine those grades.

Clarity: This is based on imperfections in a diamond and varies in grade based on how many inclusions and what kind are found in the diamond.

Carat: This is based on weight and not size. A diamond in one shape may appear smaller or larger than another, even if they both weigh the same amount.

They also point to some amusing tips for the big moment itself…

Today’s State Opening of the UK Parliament was an opportunity to see one of the most spectacular pieces of jewellery in existence — the Imperial State Crown.

The crown, with 2,898 diamonds, 273 pearls, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds, and 5 rubies, is certainly impressive, as is its weight, at just over 900g (2lb).

It is slightly outweighed by the Imperial Crown of India, which was only worn once. It has 6,100 diamonds and is 970g (2lb 2oz).

The best book about the diamond industry can now be found online.

As it suggests, buying diamonds for oneself has always been seen as unusual, and for some time I have been playing with the following analogy:

People spend on luxury (and diamonds) in the same way they gamble or frequent a bar. I am not absolutely sure, I can bet that the major difference in behaviour between serial addictive gamblers and gamblers who gamble for fun is that addictive gambling is a solitary behaviour; the gambler does not interact with the social surrounding and he is even hostile to people around him.

On the other hand, mentally healthy gamblers need people around them as they want to share their success or presentation of power — the fact that they can burn excess money — with the people around them.

Spending on diamonds is very important and the one who spends wants to select the social environment carefully. That’s why people spend on their official wives or wives-to-be but not on women with whom they have a short term liaison.

Self purchase, therefore, presents a challenge for the buyer: how to define the social environment that will appreciate this spending. We might see women who buy for themselves, sometimes with their husbands’ money, but they can be appreciated for their spending by the right person. However, single women or women who feel that they are not appreciated fully might not spend on diamonds.

If we can persuade women that diamonds will always be appreciated, we might see an increase in self purchase.

‘Your Diamond is Forever’

Nice email from Joshua Keller at Pimpwiz suggesting I do a short series on how to choose a diamond…

To be honest there are dozens of places to go for advice on diamond-choosing - not least De Beers itself. For many reasons, which I’ll explain, this technocratic, prescriptive approach is completely misguided. I’m going to approach this in my own way. The true way.

Trying to give advice on selecting the “best” diamond amounts to trying to advice someone that you do not know, or that you know only superficially on selecting the “best” partner, whether as a spouse, or a long term partner. Remember, with a diamond, there is no refund. And diamond ‘divorce’ can be a costly business.

There is no such thing as a financial investment diamond. Only an emotional investment.

Through childhood into adulthood, we have all evolved a vision of the woman or the man of our dreams, but when this dream realized and we actually find our life partner, it becomes very difficult to see the connection between the dream and the reality.

There is no cynicism or compromise here. The partner we ultimately find is not a compromise or ‘the best available’. We do not ask to have a selection to choose from. We choose the one that best meets our real needs. Hence, the one who knows the secret of choosing a spouse will be able to help us in choosing our diamond as well.

Diamond purchasers can learn two lessons from this. First, that there is no “best” spouse so there is no best diamond. We can only speak about the one that fits our dreams, and our deeper needs and that can become our true partner – the one that we will not become dissatisfied with over time.

Second, while we get help from friend and family and from the good fortune which tries to help us in finding our true companion, the decision is ours alone.

Selecting diamonds is the same. There is one diamond that is yours and having the universe to choose from which not increase your chances of finding the right diamond. Once you see it, you know that it waited for you since its creation. In addition, nobody but you can decide on what is the diamond that suits you. Above all, trust your instincts.

Getting advice from a jeweller is an option and nowadays the internet can provide you with some information as well. However, do not forget the underlying principle. Ask yourself whether you should buy a certain diamond, ask, “If it was the man or woman of my life, would I choose her by this procedure?”

The Jewellers that our daughter company Allied Diamonds (new site pending I’m afraid!) supply and coach never educate customers. They ask them to describe the diamond in their dream in any way the customer wants to use. After all, this is the job of a professional jeweller to interpret your needs and to turn your dream into reality.

Don’t start by choosing a jewel, start by choosing a jeweller.

Ignore the 4Cs

Well perhaps not ignore, but do get them in perspective….

While the infamous 4C’s have known in the industry since its creation, marketing diamonds to the consumer based on these characteristics really started only in the early 1980’s. Those who still remember how diamonds were sold before 1980 will, most probably remember the advice of choosing a jeweller that you can trust and that there is no substitution to a trusted jeweller.

The 4C’s, or the physical characteristics of the diamond (Colour, Clarity, Carat weight and Cut) are appealing surety at the first glance for the concerned consumer, but these characteristics do not actually tell us much.

Ultimately you need to other expert but yourself. While the market grew before the 4C’s were introduced to the consumer, once 4Cs emerged they became the marketing pitch - instead of the character and function of the diamond itself. Many people actually lost their trust and you can argue that relatively less people buy diamonds nowadays. The market is more and more dependent upon heavy users - diamond addicts, when what we should be cultivating are connoisseurs.

I have not much experience with diamonds that are heavily flawed so my discussion will be concentrated on diamonds where inclusions are impossible to detect with a naked eye. In the language of 4Cs, these are diamonds which clarity of SI2 or better. What is possible to detect is one characteristic – the diamond size expressed in carat weight. I am aware of the anomaly of indicating the size through the weight of the diamond and will discuss it later. There is no such a thing as “best” size as we use diamonds according to our life style and occasion. Sometimes we will need a relatively larger diamond and sometimes, a smaller one, or a combination of several diamonds.

If you choose a diamond of which flaws cannot be detected and do not impair its performance, then I cannot advice on a “better” clarity, either as all are good. Similarly, colour is a matter of personal taste. Most of the diamonds have some yellow colour in them because of the Nitrogen gas that is trapped in the crystal and the colour of them varies as it reflects the amount of gas trapped in them. In some, rarer diamonds Boron gas is trapped instead of Nitrogen and, consequently they appear blue. We have also diamonds that belong to the brown family and their colours range from brown to pink and red.

After so many years in the trade I cannot tell you what the “best” colour is as it is simply a matter of taste. Different skin tones and settings with other stones will also affect the way a diamond looks

How about cut? Originally, cut referred to the shape of the diamond: round brilliant, pear-shape, marquise, any variation of a rectangular cut and so on. The research that was done in Japan in the mid 1980’s introduced a scale based on the proportions of round-cut gems and so today we refer to the quality of the round cut when we say “cut” instead of referring to the shape of the diamond.

Our family, S. Muller & Sons, were among the pioneers to produce what is now known as the Hearts and Arrows (H+A) cut. The story of H+A calls for a separate reflection but it is enough to know that the aim of H+A was to produce a diamond that would completely reflect the light rays directed toward it from any angle, back through the top portion of the stone creating ZERO light-loss. Based on this idea, a scale was introduced that supposed to quantify the amount and the intensity of the light reflection.

Evaluation of Cut might eventually become the most rationally evaluated quality of diamonds, beyond the broad ‘best-cut’ or ‘excellent-cut’ descriptions we use today. However, you should remember that diamonds have other qualities as well. One of the clear examples is those diamonds of which colours are not on the white/yellow continuum. These diamonds are polished purposely not to reflect light and, consequently, they reflect the special colour of the diamond whatever it is. There is a growing market for such diamonds, and prices can be high, although I must admit that personally I prefer the H+A diamonds that I polish but this is a personal taste coupled with some emotional attachment to a professional achievement - bringing out their reflective potential.

One of the things we have struggled with, here at Janus, is to imagine how the jewellery retail environment should be reconfigured to encourage ‘playfulness’, ‘intimacy’ and ‘conversation’ to appeal to women, and crack the great unsolved challenge of the diamond industry - female self-purchase!

This store-front, from the Spanish chain imaginarium should spark some thinking.

Talk about communicating your brand promise at you key touchpoints…but then also look at the hideous web-site! You have to follow through guys…it’s not OK just to have a great gimmick…

What’s the female equivalent though?

The latest from De Beers — further trying to break down preconceptions (admittedly self-perpetuated) that engagement is the sole opportunity for diamond giving.