Diamond ads try to convince millennials ‘nontraditional’ relationships require a rock, too

Millennials aren’t very interested in rushing marriage, settling down, and buying a house and car. The lack of materialism is supposedly because the generation values experiences more than things, like eating at the restaurant with the highest percentage of locally-sourced organic ingredients, sipping a latte with an artfully crafted foam zebra, and Instagramming their off-the-beaten path cycling trip along the coast of Montenegro.

The diamond industry understands millennial wanderlust and rejection of the traditional values of their parents. Or it tries to demonstrate that it does, at least, in a new ad campaign featuring two “nontraditional” millennial couples. The Diamond Producers Association commissioned the ads, dubbed “Real Is Rare,” in an effort to hook the generation on the need for a shiny rock even if it doesn’t go on a woman’s left hand.

Both one-minute ads feature unmarried couples portrayed as adventurous and reticent to being tied down by the finality of marriage.

“It was after our first date we decided to run away together,” a male narrator says in the ad “Runaways,” going on to mention a trip to Thailand. “The wild that’s inside of her excites the wild that’s inside of me.”

The ad shows the couple rolling around a bed in their underwear, spliced with footage of a rabbit romping across a field. A chain with three diamond rings dangles from the woman’s neck.

“I’ll never say out loud that I need her,” the man says. “But I can’t imagine being on this journey without her.”

Thomas Henry, senior strategist for Mother New York, the ad agency that produced the spots, said the industry needed a “proactive” move to make sure fewer couples walking down the aisle didn’t translate to lower diamond sales.

"The data shows that millennials buy the most diamonds in the U.S., so this is a proactive measure to make sure that this isn't simply tied to rituals like marriage," Henry told Adweek. "On the flip side, while most millennials do get married, it's just not quite the same cultural institution that it used to be. ... but that doesn't change the desire to be in a meaningful long-term relationship."

According to De Beers, the diamond company essentially single-handedly responsible for requiring men to buy their future wife a diamond engagement ring, millennials spent almost $26 billion on the sparkly stones in 2015. It acknowledged that “tomorrow’s consumers are not the same as yesterday’s.”

Mother New York produced the ads after conducting more than six months of market research with young people across the country.

In “Wild & Kind,” a female narrator speaks of almost breaking up, but ultimately deciding to stay together. She wears a diamond pendant as the couple chase one another through a corn field and and canoe on a lake at the base of a mountain.

“Maybe we won’t ever get married. and maybe we will. But I will spend my future with you,” she says. “We made a promise to be honest to a fault, and it was wild, but also kind.”

This story was originally published October 7, 2016 at 12:00 PM with the headline "Diamond ads try to convince millennials ‘nontraditional’ relationships require a rock, too."