Linking a house to a marriage is the most famous "scam" for Chinese real estate developers. Linking diamonds to love is the most famous "hoax" on the planet.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Americans at that time did not know what diamonds were. But after an event, they began to believe that only diamonds could represent love. In 1938, De Beers, already the world's largest diamond producer, launched a "A diamond is forever" advertisement on major media platforms in the United States, that is, "Diamonds are eternal, one is forever". The slogan was also named "the greatest slogan of the 20th century." Because it makes people equate "eternal love" with "scarce diamonds", makes people believe that diamonds represent love, marriage needs diamonds to affirm, and this "artificial belief" continues to this day.
But are diamonds really scarce? Why does a small diamond cost more than 10,000? Today, this scam that "deceived" global consumers for 151 years is being crushed by "Made in Henan".
<h1>First, a sinking century-old scam</h1>
The main element of diamond is carbon, which is the most common element in nature, so diamonds themselves are not rare, and the proven global reserves of diamonds are 2.5 billion carats, but they are cleverly sold as the rarest natural gemstones, and De Beers can be called the ancestor of "hunger marketing".
In the 17th century, after the diamond was discovered in India, for a long time, it was the exclusive product of european royalty and nobility, because of the low production, fixed origin, difficult to excavate and other characteristics, diamonds became a symbol of noble status. But by 1870, a large diamond mine had been discovered in South Africa, and tons of diamonds could be dug out of it every year, even at the industrial capacity of the time.
Scarce goods are more expensive, and the supply increases sharply, and the price will plummet.
A diamond merchant named "Cecil Rhodes" felt the crisis, he believed that once the large-scale mining, the production capacity of diamonds would be worthless, so in 1888 he founded the De Beers Company, bought out almost the world's diamond mines, and began a series of "riot operations".
The first step is to control the yield
De Beers fired a large number of miners, reduced the production capacity of diamond mines, released only a very small part of the diamonds in circulation in the market, and artificially created the illusion of diamond scarcity, so that the price of diamonds has remained high. In this way, De Beers controlled most of the world's diamond production, prices, and sales channels. After more than 80 years of development, De Beers has reached annual sales of $4 billion.
The second step is manufacturing requirements
Until today, De Beers spends $200 million a year on marketing advertising, buys newspaper pages, asks popular celebrities to endorse, and implants advertisements in television and movies, as long as there is a scene of marriage proposal, the male protagonist will definitely take out a diamond ring. In this way, the diamond has become a keepsake to witness love, and it is deeply bound to love.
In order to prevent diamonds from being resold second-hand, resulting in an increase in supply, De Beers also made up the classic advertising slogan of "diamonds are eternal, a perpetual one", so that diamonds can be treasured in people's hearts, after all, who wants to buy a "second-hand" love? Women began to be moved by it, willing to believe that diamonds represented unswerving love, men also had to pay for diamonds because of face and vanity, and even once appeared "no diamonds and no marriage" phenomenon.
The third step is to engage in alliances and set standards
In the 1980s, De Beers discovered a drill mine in Siberia, and soon a large number of broken diamonds began to flood the market. Fearing the strong industrial level of the former Soviet Union, the large-scale mining of diamond mines led to the depreciation of diamonds, De Beers immediately allied with the former Soviet Union to stipulate the price of diamonds and the profit sharing between the two sides.
As diamond prices have steadily climbed, diamond mines have been discovered in various countries, but some diamond dealers are reluctant to join the De Beers Alliance. So De Beers developed a variety of diamond cutting methods such as round and prismatic shapes, making the diamond more exquisite and unable to imitate and surpass peers. A series of 4Cs to measure the cut and purity of diamonds have been set, and the quality of peer diamonds is determined by De Beers, who is both a referee and an athlete. Since then, De Beers has also become the most vocal leader in the diamond industry.
At its peak, De Beers once controlled 90% of the world's diamond mining share, and De Beers, who thought he could monopolize the diamond industry and make money lying down, met a real rival - China.
<h1>Second, the scam crusher - Henan, China</h1>
After the founding of New China, Chinese diamonds initially relied on imports, but with the complexity and diversity of the external environment, China decided to solve the problem of diamond sources independently.
In 1965, China began to develop its own six-sided top press, which is specially used to manufacture artificial diamonds. At the beginning, man-made diamonds were widely used in mechanical manufacturing and construction industries as cutting tools because of their "hard" characteristics.
At the beginning of the 21st century, China's manufacturing level continued to develop, and the application of man-made diamonds was also promoted. In recent years, China's man-made diamonds have appeared in the jewelry industry, and these man-made diamonds can compete with naturally formed diamonds in both color and texture, and even experts are difficult to distinguish, and the key price is only 1/10 of that of natural diamonds.
In the face of the impact of Chinese synthetic diamonds on the market, De Beers finally could not sit still.
In 2015, De Beers changed the slogan to "Real is Rare, Real is Diamond", which means that the real precious and rare are natural diamonds, and spent $40 million to create a "man-made diamond appraiser", but these measures did not shake consumers' enthusiasm for man-made diamonds, with more affordable prices and high quality, artificial diamond sales have risen steadily.
<h1>Third, like de Beers with man-made diamonds bowed</h1>
In the face of changes in the customer demand environment, the proud diamond "Big Brother" can not beat to join.
In 2018, De Beers launched the man-made diamond brand Lightbox, but the launch of this man-made diamond has lowered de Beers's noble status in the hearts of the public, and in 2020, De Beers' diamond sales were only 22.7 million carats, down 27% year-on-year.
Natural diamonds are created by nature's centuries-long machinations, while man-made diamonds can be grown in the lab in just one week, and are more efficient in terms of both product quality and profitability.
In 2019, the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed the technology of "artificially grown diamonds", whether in hardness or purity, artificially grown diamonds can be comparable to natural diamonds, and within 7 days can grow a carat of diamonds, but the price is only 1/10 of natural diamonds. And fully compliant with De Beers' standards and process requirements.
At present, China's synthetic diamond production has accounted for more than 90% of the global output, and can produce more than 10 billion carats of diamonds per year, of which 80% are from Henan Province, and the largest diamond cultivated in Henan currently weighs 10 carats.
De Beers, a diamond giant who relies on monopoly and advertising marketing, lost to "Made in Henan" after more than 100 years of "good days".
<h1>IV. Conclusion</h1>
It is often said that "diamonds are stars that can be picked", but in fact, diamonds are not so beautiful. In 2005, there was a line in the movie "Blood Diamond" starring Hollywood movie star Leonardo: Every pure diamond has blood on its back.
According to De Beers, more than 50% of couples in China get engaged with natural diamonds. But in fact, natural diamonds not only cannot symbolize beautiful love, but also cannot represent honor and status, but only the blood and plunder behind them. Since the discovery of the South African diamond mine in 1870, the 151-year-old scam made up by De Beers with lies is being completely crushed by artificial diamonds "made in Henan".