De Beers
Developing the tone of voice for DeBeers Jewellery.
HOW DO YOU DEVELOP A BRAND STORY FOR THE MODERN RETAIL ARM OF A COMPANY WITH SO MUCH HERITAGE?
Needing a way to both differentiate themselves from DeBeers Forevermark Diamond brand and to reinforce their own brand message to become the leader in diamond jewellery, DeBeers Jewellery briefed us to help steer this bejewelled ship. With such a powerful, deep-seated heritage in diamonds, reducing that sole connotation and enhancing the skill, craft and passion surrounding the DeBeers Jewellery design was a challenging task. The main undertaking was to design a new copy line that would replace their once owned, but now industry general ‘A diamond is forever’ copyline coined by them in 1947.
One immediate realisation whilst working on internal brand workshops was an undeniably rich knowledge about diamonds. We didn’t want to dilute this, but all communications were quite factual which can leave the consumer feeling cold. Buying diamonds, more often than not, signifies an event or feeling. Insight led us to inject the emotion evident internally into the messaging.
AN EMOTIVE BRAND STORY
The headline of the theme expresses the power instilled in the wearer and the feelings provoked by wearing DeBeers Jewellery, as well as the beauty of the pieces themselves. This plays on the exclusivity of De Beers Jewellery and creates a level of aspiration. Mirroring both the jewellery and the wearer speaks volumes to the buyer and the receiver. It showcases that De Beers Jewellery is the specialist and helps elevate them as the leader in superbly crafted, diamond jewellery.
By developing a creative theme as our guiding statement we were able to develop snippets of the brand story and created messaging for several outputs from internal brand pieces to social media channels such as Instagram and Pinterest.
Constructing a series of modular statements and phrases gave DeBeers a library of concepts to be able to build around. By depicting the emotional aspects that the brand heralds it transformed the messaging from something functional to something readers could identify and develop more of a relationship with. The chosen line will be integrated into DeBeers Jewellery brand language and communications in 2017.
EMOTIVE IMAGERY
Whilst undertaking the brand audit we noticed that the imagery often felt a little cold and factual. We guided DeBeers Jewellery by art directing best practice for achieving the emotive sentiment that the new brand story hinted at.
We began by auditing which existing imagery was more successful, the imagery shown here is one example of before, cold and often out of context product imagery (on the left), although this imagery showcases the products they were bring used at the wrong touch-points. The more successful images (on the right) had a human and therefore relatable focus, they introduced the beauty of both the wearer and the products, when shot correctly they give an allure and elevated the brand to portray an emotion linked to the event or occasion that diamonds are bought to symbolise.
