Last week, De Beers MD Gareth Penny gave sightholders a brief update on the efforts to create a much-needed industry-wide generic marketing program for diamonds. (Background on this here.)
Penny said “St. Petersburg II,” named for where the first meeting was held, was making “great progress.”
Here is more, courtesy of De Beers spokeswoman Lynette Gould:
The meeting led to an agreement, later in the year, to commission McKinsey & Co. to investigate whether such a body was necessary and outline what form it might take.
It was subsequently agreed that an independently run organisation carrying out generic marketing and liaising with other industry bodies to co-ordinate reputational issues was required. McKinsey was asked to proceed with ‘phase two’, which sought to devise a sustainable funding mechanism for the proposed new body.
The “reputational issue” aspect would seem to overlap with other groups, like the Responsible Jewellery Council (formerly CRJP) and the World Diamond Council. But it’s nice to see movement on this.
The steering committee consists of most of the world’s major miners: De Beers, BHP, Rio, Alrosa and Harry Winston – although Gould says “ideally, funding would come from across the industry.”
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