The greatest PR campaign you've never heard of. Diamonds.
In recent years, diamond sellers have faced massively decreasing valuations, with this downfall attributed to lab made alternatives.
However, this wasn't always the case. In the 1940s, diamonds were not an in demand product, they were exclusively for those who could afford it, and those who couldn't, didn't try to buy them. This left De Beers, the US' largest supplier, with a demand issue.
After hiring a PR firm from Philadelphia, the term 'diamonds are forever' was born. But things didn't just stop at a slogan. The firm paid Hollywood script writers to begin including diamond proposals into scripts and thus, pop culture. The two month salary rule? That was a rule made by design.
The entire campaign fabricated an idea that diamonds are rare and worth the elevated costs. In reality, diamonds are nothing more than carbon and their suppliers have warehouses filled with them.
Scarcity drove up prices, lab grown diamonds tore apart the entire business.
De Beers were late in noticing this trend. From a valuation of $9.2 billion 3 years ago, they're now worth $2.2 billion. They had to act fast, and they tried.
In 2018 they created Lightbox which offered cheap, lab grown diamonds. The intention was to make 'fake' diamonds look cheap and increase demand for their large supply of real ones. It didn't work.
What it did do was propel the lab grown industry ten fold. Whereas they charged $800 for their lab grown diamonds, American grocery stores began charging $200 for the same product. Prices collapsed across the board.
The result? De Beers' parent company is now in what they're calling "advanced discussion" to sell the brand. This, of course, won't be easy for a company that lost $500 million in 2025 amidst a dying industry.
One PR campaign changed the world's view of a common carbon crystal, and 100 years later, it's beginning to fall apart.