The task of executing successful advertising campaigns for products made exclusively for women is understatedly tempestuous. Any Average Joe consumer would relay the message that feminine product commercials put him under a great deal of stress and discomfort. Any Average Joe Consumer dreads the Vagisils, Cotex's, Summer's Eves, and Monistats of the world. There is just something about that viscous blue fluid dripping onto a Maxi Pad that gives us all that tingly feeling right before we want to be sick. However, there is another product that creates the same feeling in a more subtle, increasingly malignant fashion.

Diamond retailers advertise, advertise, and advertise. Expensive jewelry stores seem to be in every mall, strip mall, and shopping center, and we wonder how it is that these stores thrive. The answer is this: Venus and Mars, love and hate, and women and men. The diamond industry plays on the tensions between men and women like Beethoven's fingers on keys. "Every kiss begins with Kay?" Come on. If the only reason to kiss your husband is because he bought you something, then the issue of your relationship is even larger than the rock on your finger. Diamonds are forever saying 'I'm sorry.' If the only way a woman can be shown that you would "marry her all over again" is to give her an even bigger diamond in some market square in Paris, then your wife needs to be shown the front door. Men hate diamonds. Men buy jewelry when they are apologizing or when they have no other option for a anniversary, birthday, Mother's Day, Christmas (fill in any occasion here) gift. Jewelry is when flowers are not enough, and every single diamond retailer knows it, and thus knows that men will pay.

How does this make the female consumer appear?

The advertising for feminine hygiene is a necessary evil that reveals a vulnerability in all consumers, women and men, but advertising for the diamond industry maliciously creates fools of us all.

Men appear to be desperate and women appear to be demonic. What can be done to improve this dynamic?

What can be done to convey a more honest and meaningful brand face for diamonds? Well, perhaps it is time to consider more so why men and women love each other as opposed to why they need to buy each other gifts.

Molly Sunderdick
Stealing Share, Inc.
mollys@stealingshare.com
336-854-3441