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The Diamond Producers Association’s new Funny Or Die videos see a ‘Lab-Grown Diamond Guy’ and a ‘Natural Diamond Guy’ bantering with each other.

Natural diamond organisation launches humour video campaign

Posted December 02, 2019 | By Arabella Roden • Former editor

The US-based Diamond Producers Association (DPA) has commissioned comedy website Funny Or Die to create a series of online videos, which humorously compare natural and lab-created diamonds.

The videos follow a similar format to Apple’s award-winning ‘Get A Mac’ campaign, in which one man (‘Mac Guy’) bantered with another man (‘PC Guy’) over technical issues, including computer viruses and problems with the Windows Vista operating system.

The DPA’s promotion presents consumers with a ‘Natural Diamond Guy’ and a ‘Lab-Grown Diamond Guy’ – with the former being an honest and straightforward man, while the latter is depicted as annoying and superficial. Taglines for the videos include, ‘One of these guys is overcompensating’ and ‘Find yourself a real one’.

“This campaign is a humorous dialogue made to spark conversations about authenticity. The characters are characters – nothing is being implied”

Jean-Marc Lieberherr, DPA

They are available to watch on Funny Or Die’s website and social media channels, including Facebook, where they have garnered more than 400,000 views each.

Jean-Marc Lieberherr, CEO of the DPA, told JCK Online, “The Funny Or Die team was given license to talk about natural and lab-grown diamonds in a fun, irreverent, yet respectful manner, on key questions of value, uniqueness, and origin. The three videos use a well-known advertising trope, modern Mac versus original PC, and interestingly reverse the roles… The videos have led to positive engagement, and we have also learnt how humour can play a role in our work.”

However, some industry commentators have questioned if the clips – and associated material on the Funny Or Die website – could contravene the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC)’s regulations on diamond marketing.

In one video, the Lab-Grown Diamond Guy says, “There’s nothing fake about me” before malfunctioning. In the same video, the Natural Diamond Guy says, “We’re actually quite different”.

Background reading: Would you propose with a synthetic diamond?

In its Statement of Basis and Purpose: Final Revisions to the Jewelry Guides, the FTC “cautions marketers that it would be deceptive to use the terms ‘real,’ ‘genuine,’ ‘natural,’ or ‘synthetic’ to imply that a lab-grown diamond (i.e., a product with essentially the same optical, physical, and chemical properties as a mined diamond) is not, in fact, an actual diamond”.

When questioned about the possible regulatory issues, Lieberherr told Jeweller, “This campaign is a humorous dialogue made to spark conversations about authenticity. The characters are characters – nothing is being implied.”

Additionally, one of the videos claims that a natural diamond’s “value increases over time”; while per carat diamond prices have, in general, risen in recent decades, re-sale value is not guaranteed.

Lieberherr clarified to Jeweller that the claim of increased value refers to the annual increase in polished diamond prices at the wholesale level, averaged over several decades, rather than re-sale value.