Diamond Ads Throughout History

If you want to sell things, you need advertising. This rings true for everything from motor oil to diet books to iPhones. Here is a collection of various marketing campaigns throughout the ages that attempt to sell diamonds and diamond jewelry. We start in the 40’s, when diamond advertising first became prominent (thanks primarily to a tiny company called “DeBeers”) and move all the way to today, where precious gemstone ads are just as prevalent, if vastly different from the past. Each decade of designs says a lot about our mentality as a country. The rampant sexism of the earlier decades would be replaced by what can be considered sexy, empowering images and motifs. Eventually things take a turn for the ironic, with beauty taking a backseat to the conceptual, oblique and even grotesque. Finally, we are faced with a series of recent pitches that have a throwback or “vintage” slant.
The good, the bad, and the unintentionally (and intentionally) ugly. We’ve got ’em all. Continue reading Diamond Ads Throughout History