Natural polished diamond countermarketing essentials. Part 4. Conclusion and some special questions

So, in accordance with countermarketing model under consideration, the information shell (image) of natural polished diamonds must get and firmly hold the following constants:

- when purchasing a natural polished diamond jewellery, buyers inevitably act as victims since the pricing mechanism is historically completely controlled by sellers and is not transparent to buyers. The used determination of a natural polished diamond value as a function of parametres that are ‘sub-threshold’ for visual perception under normal conditions should become the equivalent of legalized fraud for consumers. The preservation of value (as well as the investment potential) of natural polished diamonds is generally a bluff. (“Cost” Line);

- the secondary market for natural polished diamonds is an unstructured ‘gray area’ that does not have any convincing quantitative assessments. Therefore, the purchase of a natural polished diamond, no matter how “new” it may be announced by a seller, is always associated with the risk of becoming the owner of an object that has a negative provenance. (“Karma” Line);

- for more than a century of natural rough diamond mining, huge areas on five continents have been irreversibly damaged, unique biocenoses have been destroyed. Buyers of natural polished diamonds are inevitably responsible for this. In the 21st century, either barbarians or idiots can destroy the planet for the sake of luxury goods. (“Ecology” Line).

A natural polished diamond image defined by the three above coordinates should become the basis of the narratives based on a historical content created within the framework of the model under consideration. Working with an image in such a four-dimensional space (“Cost”, “Karma”, “Ecology” + time) is very convenient because it allows to adapt the model to consumer audiences that differ in language, gender, country, age, as well as in social, cultural, and other features, by varying the weight of coordinates and time ranges. Accordingly, the image of lab-grown diamonds (LGD) is created as an antithesis in the same coordinates.

The closest historical analogy is the brilliant countermarketing campaign for natural furs held in the 1980s that was commissioned by firms producing new synthetic materials for clothing. As a result, many luxury brands such as Versace, Prada, DKNY, Burberry, Calvin Klein, and others have abandoned the use of furs in their collections, the natural fur market lost about 50% of its capitalization, and the synthetic materials market increased drastically. Despite the fact that the attack was carried out in a rather simple and straightforward way and focused exclusively on “inhumane treatment of animals”, the fur industry was not saved by the words about its “natural” and “rare” goods. Based on these results, we can assume that the introduction of the described model will allow at least 25% (from the current level) of the natural polished diamond market to be cannibalized in favour of LGDs within 3 years. But since in our case the main implementation tool is social networks and not relatively expensive television projects (as is the case with the fur market), the cost/effectiveness ratio can be much more attractive given that the required content has already been developed.

Of course, countermarketing efforts will inevitably get pushback from the beneficiaries of the natural rough and polished market. The scope of discussions has already been quite fully manifested in the materials published on the Natural Diamond Council’s website, and if we do not pay attention to the obvious and speculations (that can be easily stopped) about greenhouse gas emissions or the origin of the electricity used to grow diamonds in China and India, there are three positions that require special consideration.

First of all, this is the manipulation of the “age” of competitors: “The differences between natural and lab-grown diamonds are associated with different processes for their creation. Natural rough diamonds were formed 90 million to 3 billion years ago due to the effect of high pressures and high temperatures on carbon that took place at the depth of about 100 miles from the Earth’s surface. Subsequently, they were brought to the surface by intense volcanic eruptions. Lab-grown diamonds are generally produced within a few weeks using one of two technologies.”1

This thesis is now present in every advertisement of natural polished diamonds, no matter how it is distributed, and no matter what audience it is intended for. It is clear that the thesis appeared and is actively implemented thanks to a strong specific competitor - lab-grown diamonds. A decade ago, the information about the exact time of the formation of natural diamonds was brought to consumers mainly in popular science publications and, frankly speaking, was of little interest to them. An attempt to appeal to the “age” of a polished diamond studded into a jewellery piece, of course, has no precedents and is fully in line with the spirit of the natural polished diamond market aimed at selling anything to consumers that cannot be objectively assessed and has no effect on the quality of the product in any way. It is even surprising that Rapaport has not yet introduced a price scale based on an “age”, so that a 90-million-year-old polished diamond should, of course, cost less than a 3-billion-year-old gemstone.

However, the truth is that natural polished diamonds and LGDs are absolutely identical physically, chemically and optically, and they are just a crystalline form of carbon. And the curious thing is that the carbon atoms in the crystal lattice of a natural polished diamond and the carbon atoms in the crystal lattice of LGDs are of the SAME AGE2. This information added to the considered countermarketing model will, certainly, help the consumers to orient themselves the right way.

Another significant point to consider when creating countermarketing narratives is the bluff created by diamond mining companies about the well-being and prosperity that diamond mining supposedly brings to the areas where the diamond deposits were found. This bluff is based on blatantly false and cynical assumptions, which is well illustrated by the NDC report, “Information surrounding diamond recovery processes provided by NDC members details that because no chemicals are used in the extraction process, it does not cause any irreversible damage on the environment. What it does change is the landscape as it creates waste rock piles, however these are reclaimed by the landscape as part of mine closure plans which are done under the strict supervision and approval of local communities and governments. Topography is not the same as damage. Land can be restored to land use acceptable to the local community.”3.

Indeed? Are no chemicals used in the diamond extraction process? Then, how to explain the construction of a storage facility with a megatonne capacity4 at the Snap Lake deposit for ANFO chemical explosive components? Or the 12,000 tonnes per year5 chemical explosives plant at the Diavik mine? At each and every operated primary diamond deposit, chemical explosives from ANFO, TNT and etc. are used, and the natural diamond extraction is impossible without using them. Well, a consumer doesn’t need to be an experienced environmentalist to adequately appreciate the statement “land can be restored to land use acceptable to the local community” just by looking at a photo of a diamond quarry.

Outright lies are combined with an endless information stream about generous royalties paid by diamond mining companies to communities living in the areas where diamonds are mined, about the investments in the biodiversity conservation, reclamation, and so on. Of course, part of the profits received by diamond miners is used to maintain the loyalty of “local communities and governments”, but only as long as diamonds are mined. When a diamond deposit is depleted - what’s next? And then, the local community is left with a hole several hundred metres deep and 1.5 km in diametre, filled with toxic brines, surrounded by dead waste dumps, devoid of organic matters, with tailings fraught with potential environmental disasters (as in Jagersfontein in 2022), and in the extreme case, with a potentially hazardous nuclear waste repository site located 2.5 km from the town (as in Udachny). And such masterpieces of “topography” will need to be maintained without any royalties, exclusively at the expense of local budgets. Diamonds turned out to be not “forever”, but the consequences of their mining are really forever, and all future generations of the local communities will pay for them.

Finally, the transparency and conflict-free market for natural rough and polished diamonds should be touched upon, which has become a real fetish for enthusiasts of the goods over the past two decades. In many ways, this is the same speculation as the above two issues. It’s not even that many diamond-producing countries show outstanding results in their corruption ratings, and the acquisition of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme certificates is a very inexpensive and well-established procedure in these countries. The fact is that the concept of “conflict-free” diamonds is basically not applicable to the natural rough and polished diamond market, if it is considered in a historical retrospective. Let’s explain this with a concrete recent example.

In May this year, Pavlo Protopapa, founder and CEO of Geneva-based Spacecode, gave an interview and announced the invention of a device that allows to accurately determine the diamond deposit where a respective rough diamond was mined (it means, the country of origin), which was considered impossible earlier6. According to P. Protopapa, the commercial introduction of the disruptive technology is expected by the end of 2023 and it will help the world to get rid of conflict diamonds forever. Of course, there is a strong ‘smell’ of another scam in these brave reports as the official Spacecode’s website does not provide any viable explanations of the DiamondMatch™ technology, and the patents are mentioned but not accompanied by information about their content and the patent registration country7. But suppose that Mr. Protopapa is a genius and he really managed to solve such a non-trivial problem. What will this lead to?

For example, a certain British owner of a polished diamond wants to sell it. The buyer puts the polished diamond into a wonderful machine named after Mr. Protopapa that shows that the polished diamond was made from a rough diamond mined in Russia at the Aikhal kimberlite pipe. Unfortunately, the deal is impossible as the import of Russian “blood” polished diamonds into the UK is prohibited. The indignant seller says that he inherited this gemstone 25 years ago from his beloved grandmother who did not know about Mr. Protopapa and firmly believed in the preservation of the natural diamond value, but the buyer will only shrug his shoulders saying “law is law”. Or, for example, a batch of “blood” polished diamonds made from no less “blood” Zimbabwean rough diamonds appeared at some customs office, but the diamond owner, winking cheerfully at the officer, produces a pile of supporting documents proving that this batch was made in those days when Zimbabwean rough diamonds were not “blood” ones at all.

So, it is not enough to solve the problem WHERE the rough diamond was mined, from which gemstone a certain polished diamond was made, it is also necessary to determine WHEN it was mined. And without this, the Spacecode’s initiative turns into another empty talk about “transparency”, “ethics”, “conflict-free’ diamonds, and other wild plans of the natural rough and polished diamond market.

Summarizing the above, let’s once again draw the reader’s attention to the current combination of market, cultural and geopolitical factors, providing a unique opportunity for the LGDs. We are at that point in history when the intellect and technology can prevail over archaism and barbarism.

Sergey Goryainov, Rough&Polished


1  https://www.naturaldiamonds.com/diamond-guide/diamond-facts-full-report/ 
2  https://earthscience.rice.edu/2016/09/05/new-model-for-origin-of-earths-carbon-and-sulfur/
3  https://www.naturaldiamonds.com/diamond-guide/diamond-facts-full-report/ 
4 SNAP LAKE MINE. Waste Management Plan V.4. 2019. Р 10-2.
5 Diavik Diamond Mines Inc. BLASTING AND EXPLOSIVES MANAGEMENT PLAN. P. 4.
6  https://www.jckonline.com/editorial-article/spacecode-where-diamonds-from/
7  https://spacecodediamonds.com/diamond-id/