CaratEighty percent to the consumer: the NDC changes the subject
Amber Pepper told a GJEPC meeting in Mumbai that at least 80% of Natural Diamond Council advertising now goes to consumers, with a desire index baseline due in September and a trust mark to be inscribed on stones.
§1A number on where the money goes.
The Natural Diamond Council has put a number on where its money goes. Chief executive Amber Pepper, speaking at a Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council meeting in Mumbai on Monday, said at least 80% of the council's advertising spend will be directed at consumers rather than at the trade. She also set out a Diamond Desire Index and a Natural Diamond Mark, and said the council's budget is up significantly on last year without giving the figure.
The three instruments are worth separating. The 80% split is a straightforward reallocation away from industry advertising, which is the category that talks to people who already sell diamonds. The Diamond Desire Index is a measurement programme tracking consideration, purchase intent, sentiment and recommendation in India, China and the United States, with a baseline due in September 2026. The Natural Diamond Mark is a trust device, a mark to be inscribed on natural stones and jewellery globally, aimed at a shopper who can no longer tell the two products apart across a counter.
§2Three instruments, separated.
Pepper's framing of the job was blunter than the trade is used to hearing from its own marketing body. "Stop talking about the crisis and start promoting the desirability of natural diamonds," she said. Her six transformational pillars are industry unity, category marketing, organisation evolution, consumer design, cultural relevance and category protection, and the council is working with the agency Artefact on optimising how natural diamonds appear inside large language models, which is where a growing share of the pre-purchase research now happens.
The Natural Diamond Mark is a trust device, a mark to be inscribed on natural stones and jewellery globally, aimed at a shopper who can no longer tell the two products apart across a counter.
§3The arithmetic it is aimed at.
The arithmetic the campaign is aimed at has not moved much. This desk reported on Tuesday that the RapNet Diamond Index for 1-carat polished was flat in July, ending thirteen months of decline, and that the 0.30 and 0.50-carat bands rose. De Beers' consolidated average realised price fell 32% across the first half to $105 a carat. An advertising budget can change what a shopper wants; it cannot change what a producer clears at a sight, and the desire index will not report a baseline until September, which means the first honest read on whether any of this works arrives in 2027.
An 80% consumer split is the right allocation about three years late, and the mark is the more interesting half of the announcement. A category losing to a chemically identical product at a fraction of the price has exactly two defences, provenance and meaning, and an inscribed mark is the only one of the two you can verify at the counter. Retailers should ask now what the mark costs, who applies it, and whether it appears on goods already in their safe. Marketing that arrives without an operational answer to those three questions is a brochure.
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