Can De Beers Convince Millennials to Buy Diamonds Instead of iPads?

Doing so requires a big ad push, analyst says.

Diamonds are the cheapest they’ve been in a decade, Bloomberg writes, “a sign that the industry is failing to maintain the cachet of its brand” as suppliers attempt to catalyze demand among millennials who seem “more interested in spending money on vacations, fancy handbags and high-tech gadgets.” The article explains how diamond suppliers like De Beers and Alrosa PJC attempted to raise prices in 2015, but that effort was stymied after buyers in India threatened to boycott auctions of rough gems, resulting in De Beers slashing prices by 15 percent last year and another seven percent in January.

Now, De Beers is hoping that its recently increased spending on advertising will turn things around. Indeed, Bloomberg says it’s an encouraging sign that the mining giant was able to raise rough prices by 2 percent in a sale this week, the first increase in more than a year. “It’s got to come down to ad-spend,” Ben Davis, a mining analyst at Liberum Capital Ltd., told the business news outlet. “They just need to bite the bullet.”

Read more at Bloomberg