Diamonds Weren't So Attractive (Until De Beers Proposed)

Believe it or not, there was a time when diamonds were just another pretty rock collecting dust on store shelves.

So why are they on the fingers of every bride-to-be today? To understand that, let's travel at least 8 decades back in time.

It’s the late 1930s and De Beers is sitting on a sparkling empire of diamonds, enough to rival the stars in the night sky.

But there's a catch—nobody’s buying.

The Great Depression had just taken the world for a rough ride, and splurging on shiny rocks would be the last thing on any eligible bachelor’s mind.

So De Beers needed a plan, and fast.

What do they do? They hire N.W. Ayer, an ad agency in New York. These ad wizards cooked up a campaign that was about to put Mad Men to shame.

They had a simple yet audacious goal: Convince every starry-eyed lover that nothing screams eternal love quite like a diamond. And how did they do it? With four little words: “A Diamond Is Forever.”

This one line painted the diamonds not just as luxury items, but as heirlooms that you'd never dream of selling. These rings eventually passed down from grandma to mom to that starry-eyed granddaughter.

The campaign hit the airwaves, the magazines, and the silver screens. Celebrities were draped in diamonds, scenes of cinematic proposals glittered with them, and slowly but surely, the diamond engagement ring wiggled its way into American love stories.

By the 1950s, diamond rings were the rage, and if you weren’t popping the question with a sizeable rock, were you even trying?

The result? A surge in diamond demand that outpaced even the most optimistic forecasts. De Beers, once worried about selling their surplus, now couldn’t dig them out of the ground fast enough.

Fast forward to today, and the engagement ring went from nice-to-have to must-have quicker than you can say “I do.”

And De Beers? They went from dusty rock collectors to the lords of the ring, dictating terms in the corridors of love.