For years, diamond marketing had a fairly predictable calendar: weddings, engagements, anniversaries and festive gifting. But consumers aren’t necessarily following that calendar anymore. Some are buying diamonds to celebrate their own milestones, others are wearing them as everyday accessories, and younger buyers are changing what the category looks like.
For marketers, this raises a bigger question: how do you get consumers to think of diamonds beyond the occasions they have always been associated with?
De Beers India is looking to answer that through category-building, new purchase occasions, Gen Z-focused consumption and stronger consumer education around natural diamonds. The company is also looking at how it measures marketing effectiveness, moving beyond campaign reach and engagement to indicators such as desirability, consideration and retail footfall.
Speaking to Brand Beats, Toranj Mehta, Country Head, Category Marketing, De Beers India, explains how these priorities are shaping the company’s approach to natural diamond marketing.
Expanding category penetration by creating new buying occasions
A key part of De Beers’ category-marketing approach is to expand the occasions on which consumers consider buying natural diamonds. Rather than relying only on weddings and traditional gifting moments, the focus is on identifying other purchase triggers and building modern rituals around them.
“Our focus is on introducing new rituals and buying occasions that expand modern diamond consumption while deepening overall category penetration,” says Mehta. “Diamonds have always held significance across different generations, and it is the younger consumers who are now setting the trend. They are altering both when and how they wear diamonds.” she added.
The strategy is not just about refreshing the way diamond jewellery is advertised. It is about widening the category’s consumption base by making the product relevant to more moments in a consumer’s life. For marketers, that requires a shift from communicating only the established reasons to buy towards identifying occasions that may not yet be strongly associated with natural diamonds.
Mehta points to changing purchase behaviour among women as one example. According to her, approximately two-thirds of natural diamond jewellery bought outside weddings is now self-purchased. This changes the traditional buyer-recipient dynamic that has shaped much of the category’s marketing.
“Women are no longer waiting to be gifted a diamond; they are authoring the occasion,” she says. “About two-thirds of natural diamond jewellery bought outside weddings is now self-purchased. Rather than viewing diamonds as a reward for another person’s achievement, we now see them as a symbol of a milestone of her own, such as a promotion, a difficult but achieved decision, a friendship, or a change in life stage.” said Mehta.
For the category, the marketing opportunity lies in recognising these moments and giving consumers a reason to associate them with a diamond purchase.
“The diamond category should have the right to claim the moments that women choose to mark for themselves and transform them into modern rituals,” Mehta added.
This also calls for a broader representation of consumers in diamond advertising. Historically, women were often shown as recipients and men as the buyers. Mehta says that the category now has to move towards individual identity and personal style, rather than relying on fixed roles in which one gender gives and the other receives.
Mehta said “Historically, diamond advertising viewed women almost exclusively as recipients and men as providers. Today, as personal styling boundaries dissolve, diamonds are increasingly viewed as a universal medium of self-expression,” she says. “By shifting the narrative towards individual identity, personal milestones and versatile design, brands can successfully speak to anyone who values authenticity and style.”
This wider approach also creates room to address men as consumers, not just as purchasers of jewellery for someone else. Mehta sees men’s jewellery as an emerging opportunity beyond wedding bands and watches, including studs, pendants and bracelets.
“Yes, it is early, but it is a real opportunity. Men’s interest in personal style is growing,” she said. She added that the category will need versatile designs, relatable role models and retail spaces where men feel welcome. “This is also not a new idea in India, since men have worn diamonds for centuries.”
Gen Z and the push to make diamonds more relevant
Alongside self-purchasing, younger consumers are another important part of the category’s expansion strategy. Their influence is not limited to what they buy; it also extends to how and when they wear jewellery.
“Gen Z makes up just over half of the market’s value and views diamonds as a form of everyday self-expression rather than as something for exclusive use,” she said.
That shift has a direct bearing on marketing. If younger consumers are more open to wearing diamonds as part of everyday styling, category communication needs to show how the product can fit into those contexts without losing the attributes that distinguish natural diamonds. The task, as Mehta describes it, is to retain the category’s established meaning while creating new rituals around occasions that matter to younger buyers.
“Therefore, we retain the meaning and heritage and create modern rituals around the occasions that this generation values,” she added.
This also means that marketing needs to account for a broader range of products and ways of wearing them. Mehta says younger consumers are changing both when and how diamonds are worn, creating room for the category to be considered beyond the traditional wedding or occasion-wear purchase. The objective is to expand consumption while retaining the value attached to natural diamonds.
Building category demand through the retail ecosystem
De Beers’ work with independent jewellers is another part of its category-building approach, particularly in Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets. National-level marketing can create awareness and interest, but retailers are the ones who engage with consumers at the point of purchase. Mehta says category development depends on supporting this wider ecosystem rather than focusing only on consumer-facing campaigns.
Mehta explained “Category-building only succeeds when the entire ecosystem grows together,” she says. “Through the Indian Natural Diamond Retailer Alliance (INDRA), we partner closely with jewellers who form the backbone of Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets.”
Mehta said that the programme combines category-level demand creation with support for individual retailers. “On the ground, we empower their teams with practical marketing assets, in-depth staff training, and consumer education tools. Simultaneously, we help them shape their strategic positioning as the premier natural diamond destination in their regions.”
The model is based on a distinction between building demand for the category and converting that demand at the store level. “By driving broad macro-demand for the category, we generate high-intent footfall that individual retailers can proudly convert in their own showrooms under their own brand identities,” she explained.
Campaigns that create occasions, and metrics that measure impact
The idea of expanding buying occasions is reflected in De Beers’ Love, From Hubby campaign. It focuses on couples entering a new phase of life after their children grow up, drawing attention to companionship and renewed romance beyond familiar gifting moments such as weddings and anniversaries.
“Campaigns such as ‘Love, From Hubby’ were based on a simple realisation: while weddings and anniversaries are widely celebrated, there is a quiet, deeply personal chapter, such as couples stepping into a new phase of life after their children grow up, that often goes unacknowledged,” explained Mehta.
The campaign is an example of how category marketing can identify a moment that consumers may recognise but have not traditionally connected with a diamond purchase. The aim is to add to the existing set of occasions rather than replace them, giving consumers more reasons to consider the category.
Mehta says the effectiveness of such campaigns cannot be judged through views and engagement alone. De Beers also looks at whether marketing activity influences the desirability of natural diamonds for gifting and self-purchase, alongside brand consideration, retail footfall and the extent to which consumers adopt campaign narratives in their own lives.
Mehta said “Digital metrics like views only show who was watching, not who was moved,” she says. “To truly measure impact, we track shifts in underlying desirability, such as whether natural diamonds rank as the top choice for gifts and self-purchases, using proprietary data like our Diamond Acquisition Study.”
“We also monitor growing brand consideration, retail footfall, and whether consumers organically adopt our campaign narratives to celebrate their own lives. True success is when a campaign shifts how a consumer thinks, not just what they buy.” she added.
This approach places consumer perception alongside more immediate campaign indicators. For a considered purchase such as diamond jewellery, the impact of marketing may be visible in changes in consideration or in the occasions consumers begin associating with the category, not necessarily in an immediate transaction.
Mehta explained that the company does not want to be overly promotional or chase short-lived trends on social media, but instead aims to build emotional connections through stories rooted in craftsmanship, rarity and legacy.
“For us, social media isn’t about being overly promotional or chasing short-lived trends; it’s about building genuine emotional connections and telling stories that matter to people,” she says. “We keep our social presence firmly rooted in what makes diamonds so special: their craftsmanship, rarity and lasting legacy. But we bring that to life in a way that feels natural for fast-moving platforms.” said Mehta
What comes next for natural diamond marketing?
Over the next five years, Mehta expects trust, emotional value and rarity to remain central to the natural diamond category. With consumers encountering a wider range of man-made alternatives, she believes the natural origin and scarcity of diamonds will continue to be important parts of the category’s proposition.
“Trust, emotional value and rarity will continue to be the main foundations of the category,” said Mehta. “Since consumers are confronted by a wide range of man-made alternatives, the natural scarcity and natural origin of a diamond become more valuable.”
For brands, she explained, the task will be to connect those established attributes with contemporary communication. “The future will belong to those brands that effectively combine transparent provenance with modern emotional storytelling.”
Mehta also draws on her experience at Titan, where she learnt the importance of managing a consumer brand ecosystem and aligning stakeholders across the value chain, from source and supply to retail and the consumer. “Execution has to be anchored in a profound human truth. People buy how a brand makes them feel,” she added, adding that her experience with diamonds has shown her the value of connecting a natural product with intimate, irreplaceable milestones.
The marketing challenge is to make natural diamonds more present in consumers’ consideration sets, without relying solely on the occasions that have traditionally driven purchases.