World Gold Council Spins Off LoveGold

World Gold Council has spun off its LoveGold campaign, and the popular brand is looking for a new partner.

The brand was launched in Jan. 2013 as a consumer-facing online site that promoted gold to younger consumers. Earlier this year, a group led by managing director of jewelry Sally Morrison left the WGC to turn it into a commercial entity. (The WGC retains a minority interest in the brand.)

 “There is a group of us that were really keen to take it on,” Morrison says. “We feel it has a lot of potential but we need commercial partners. We have a fantastic community that is very engaged. We have to find a way to give it a commercial life, whether that means e-commerce or through advertising or selling it to a manufacturer.”

“The plan was always to evolve this into a commercial entity,” she adds. “The World Gold Council has put an enormous amount of resources into this brand. The first chapter was to build the brand then test the possibility of creating the community. Now we are looking for a partner who wants to target younger buyers.” 

Among the brand’s assets: A community of some 750,000 gold fans, two thirds of which are in India and China.

“They are young, the sweet spot is 18 to 32,” Morrison says. “They literally love fine jewelry, not just gold. It is a highly engaged group.  We get a lot of comments related to purchase.”

 Other assets include a strong name and widely visited site; 50,000 images; and a staff with 50-plus years experience in the jewelry industry. (Joining Morrison are people she worked with at both WGC, De Beers, and Forevermark—Jamie Cadwell Gage and Emmy Kondo—as well as Jacqueline Crocker and Aspasia Anoustis. Former WGC and De Beers exec David Lamb will act as strategic advisor.)

Among the brand’s achievements: it was nominated for a 2014 Jewelry Information Center GEM Award for communications. Twitter cited its 2014 Academy Award campaign, in collaboration with Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o, as a “success story,” noting it generated 2.1 million impressions, and 30,000 new followers. Morrison’s work on the campaign earned her a place on JCK’s 2015 Power List.

So far, there has been quite a bit of interest, she says.

As far as what this means for the WGC, spokesperson Peter Tulupman tells JCK: “We don’t have any current market activities for jewelry. However the World Gold Council will be closely watching the jewelry market through our Gold Demand Trends commentary.”

He didn’t have any comment on why it was spun off, only saying, “The level of investment required to bring about significant change to the market is high.”

 

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JCK News Director

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