I’m not sure what this says about the industry’s psyche, but two of the most-talked-about facts presented at the GIA Symposium were ones that made the industry feel pretty bad about itself, says Rob Bates on www.jckonline.com. To wit:
- Jewelers ranked near the bottom when Americans were asked “what professions do you trust,” according to a poll by Gallup, presented by Ken Royal, the company’s senior client service manager.
Only 20 percent of those surveyed said they trusted jewelers, right down there with lawyers and members of Congress. Even us much-maligned journalists, at 26 percent, ranked higher than jewelry retailers, who did out-score lobbyists and used car dealers. For the record, the top-scoring professions were firefighters, nurses, members of the U.S. military, doctors, and clergy.
- The industry also failed dismally in the “Digital IQ” scores formulated by NYU professor business Scott Galloway and his L2 think-tank for prestige brands.
“Jewelry and watch” sites scored at the absolute bottom of the company’s index, which measures how well luxury businesses use the web, and this time there weren’t even used car dealers to make the industry look good. (Specific scores can be seen here.) “The fashion industry is pulling away from the jewelry and watch industry,” Galloway warned.
There were three reasons for this, according to Galloway: First, the jewelry industry is “highly fragmented,” and doesn’t have the resources to spend on digital. Second, there are “very few publicly traded jewelry companies, so you don’t have a stock analyst asking what your Internet strategy is.”
And finally, the industry is run by “old white men in Europe,” Galloway said. “That isn’t the Internet generation. That is the generation that is hoping the Internet goes away.”
He added: “For a company like Rolex, with that kind of global brand equity, to be listed as challenged, that is a crime. There is really something wrong.”
He did have nice things to say about Tiffany, whose site “does a pretty good job of threading the needle: They bring the brand to life, but you are there to buy.”
“A lot of companies see the Internet as a marketing spend,” he said, “not as an ROI spend in terms of reaching a new clientele.”
He advised jewelers who want to get more digitally savvy to “find brands in your category that you respect, and mimic them as much as possible.”
- So did anyone have anything good to say about the industry? Well, Dr. Brian Nattrass, founder of Sustainability Partners, who lectured on corporate responsibility, professed to being pleasantly surprised at all the industry social initiatives. (Even though, again, this industry probably lags behind others on most social measurements.)
That said, the two sessions on this sustainability seemed too general: I think most of the big players agree on the need to be more environmentally and socially conscious. Given the growing buying power of the younger generation, and the increased interest of governments in these matters, these things are no longer optional. What the industry needs at this point is a road-map on how to improve, and ways to spread the word when it does do something right.
Overall the Symposium was, in my view, well worth attending this year. Galloway had probably the best talk, but the level of the presentations was extremely high (as they were at this year’s AGS Conclave.) The event was certainly more scaled-back than Symposiums past—the last go-round included performances by Chris Isaak and synchronized swimmers—but the sessions seemed “meatier.” And having it at the GIA campus was a nice touch.
