Platinum
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Precious-metals marketers take latest ads online
By Catherine Dayrit
December 17, 2008
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| New creative from Platinum Guild International features real women and their reasons for choosing the metal. This ad ran in Cosmopolitan magazine, and a behind-the-scenes video is being featured on Vogue.tv. |
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New York--The Platinum Guild International (PGI) has a strong grasp of why consumers should choose platinum, and for years, PGI has proclaimed those reasons in its advertising campaigns.
But now, in this Internet age of blogs and social networking, the association has taken to letting others--namely, consumers themselves--do the talking.
PGI is not the only precious-metals marketing group shaking up its methods a bit.
Both PGI and the World Gold Council (WGC), whose advertisements are staples in lifestyle and fashion magazines, focus on tapping into the values that are most intrinsic to women, capturing some of that buzz from women who surf and shop on the Web. Palladium Alliance International (PAI) and The Silver Institute's Silver Marketing Initiative (SMI), both comparable newcomers to the field, have set their sights on Web campaigns.
PGI's latest creative, which is being played up in a behind-the-scenes spot on Vogue.tv, features images of regular women from across the country paired with product shots and text about their reasons for choosing platinum. Nine designers from PGI's Preferred Platinum Program, including the likes of Martin Flyer and Novell Design Studio, are featured. The ads, set to run in magazines such as Martha Stewart Weddings and Cosmopolitan, won't replace the familiar "Your love has just gone platinum" creative, but will instead be used as an addendum to it.
"It's another means of communicating our message about platinum," PGI USA Manager of Marketing Communications Michelle Peranteau says. "We felt that the best way to tell platinum's story was to have real women themselves who've had a choice to get a platinum engagement ring and band talk about why they made the choice they did."
And in addition to the exposure in print, the spot on Vogue.tv--which allows viewers to hear and see the women featured in the campaign--directly pinpoints PGI's target audience of fashion-savvy women across the country.
"There's nothing more powerful than video to tell a story," Peranteau says, adding that based upon consumer research, PGI found that women are very receptive to hearing about other women's stories, and the timing was also right.
"As we're in the mix of a very challenging economic time, history tells us this is certainly the time when consumers demand to know the value of the products they're purchasing," Peranteau says.
Expanding 'Only Gold' message
For spring, the WGC is working on how to balance its familiar print messaging with a greater Web presence, says Duvall O' Steen, the WGC's director of jewelry public relations and promotion USA.
In September, the WGC debuted an expansion of its ad campaign, launching four-page "Only Gold" ads rather than single sheets in the fall fashion and lifestyle magazines.
The first page, graced simply with a single gold bar marked with the words "Only Gold," is meant to catch the attention of page-flippers.
"It stops you in your tracks because it's such a symbolic element," WGC Vice President of Marketing USA Michael Pace says. "It conjures up feelings of security and all the timeless values that gold has."
The three pages following feature familiar messaging, "Only gold is treasured" and "Only gold radiates warmth," for example, plus the jewelry of one designer per page, with Temple St. Clair, Dana David and Doris Panos among the mix.
As for the online segment of the campaign, the WGC is working with InStyle.com to produce a consumer marketing initiative during the awards show season of early 2009. Online initiatives for the annual "May is Gold Month" campaign will also be ramped up, with the WGC exploring viral and Web marketing opportunities, including a presence in virtual reality world Second Life.
For their own campaigns to promote palladium and silver, respectively, PAI and the SMI are both taking advantage of changing consumer habits on the Web.
PAI, which made its debut at the Couture show in Las Vegas over the summer, recently relaunched the trade portion of its Web site, LuxuryPalladium.com. In addition to drawing the trade to the site, the association's focus right now is on product. A major campaign was set to launch in the fall, says DJS Marketing Group President Deborah Scarpa, whose agency handles marketing for the campaign, yet those plans were put on hold.
"We're very aware of the economic times and felt we were better holding off on the launch to focus on the building up of product, so it wouldn't be frustrating for consumers [hoping] to find palladium in stores," she says.
To do so, PAI is trying to make its presence better known on the trade circuit and is contacting both key and new manufacturers, with the consumer campaign set to launch online next fall.
"We're really looking at the affluent customers, and consumers are going to change their shopping behavior with this economic climate," says PAI Marketing Director Dawn McCurtain. "They're going to be doing a lot of research on the Web, so we have decided, as opposed to going to the traditional format of the magazines, the Web is a place that we can educate them."
An e-mail blast is set to launch in January to draw the trade to the site, which will feature new sections and promotions. PAI is also active on social-networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.com.
Scarpa says that especially with palladium's positioning as the "now metal," a strong online presence is crucial.
"It's a new world online and it's a powerful world," Scarpa says. "We want to harness that in a very powerful way."
The Silver Institute, whose consumer-marketing element, the SMI, was introduced earlier this summer, is at a similar stage in its campaign.
SMI consultant Michael Barlerin, previously of the WGC and Zale Corp., walked the JA New York Summer Show with his associates and identified approximately 15 established and emerging designers working primarily in sterling silver. Of those designers, 10 will be included in a designer gallery on the association's new marketing Web site, which will go live this month.
Barlerin says the primary aspect of the launch will be individual designer pages, through which viewers can get a taste of that designer's philosophy about silver and see some of their jewelry.
The "Savor Silver" campaign is still in its early stages, but upcoming plans include a roundtable event in January to precede the JA New York Winter Show, as well as promotion in the trade media early next year.
"I think the timing could not conceivably be better for silver," Barlerin says. "I think there is an appetite for it that is different from the appetite that exists for the other metals right now. The timing is so right for one of the noble metals that happens to have a lower price point."
Editor's Note: This story first appeared in the December 2008 edition of National Jeweler.
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