My jeweler can beat up your jeweler

Ahh, the holiday season. When there’s magic in the eye of every newly “good” child, when temporary staff members are expected to rise and shine so that their stores can open long before the roosters are stirring, and when jewelry stores seek to reach out to an audience that has no clue about the category: men.

While some such establishments run landscape, “remember us?” advertising throughout the year, one can’t swing a strand of freshwater pearls during this festive season without hitting a radio spot, billboard, print ad or direct mail piece promising a desperate husband or boyfriend that theirs is the place that can be trusted to make that special someone happy.

To get this message across, the seemingly shared creative concept is to trot out the store’s owner with one or more of the following messages:

• We’re not like everyone else; you’ll be comfortable here
• We know how stressful it can be to pick out jewelry for your sweetie
• I pick the gems myself; everyone else has the rejects
• You’ll get more for your money – no matter how much money you have to spend
• We’ll make the whole process fast and painless

No less than four different jewelry stores in the Kansas City metro area are putting the owner behind the microphone to deliver these messages in as friendly and folksy style as possible. At least two others use an announcer guy to talk about the owner and how involved he or she is in the day-to-day operation so, once again, you can trust us more than “those guys.”

So, the poor suffering jewelry shopper is left to figure out whose voice sounds more believable, because no one is saying anything different than anyone else.

This phenomenon is a product of two things: the ego of the store owner, and the laziness of the creative team to just give in, rather than coming up with something that makes that client’s store the place to go to first on the hunt for jewelry. To protect your company from such a problem, consider the following:

• Even if it works for “them,” it may not work for you. It’s usually dangerous to think that “anything you can do, I can do better,” because your effort will invariably be compared to the original. Rather than working hard to jazz up the same message, say something different.
• Don’t berate. Educate. For an industry that was so smart that it was able to set the price (“about two months’ salary”) for an engagement ring and make the target audience feel good about paying it, shouldn’t somebody local appeal to the male need to feel smart by educating them a bit on smart jewelry shopping?
• Sweeten the deal. Think beyond what you are selling to make your business the obvious choice in the category. For example, one of these jewelers should have a “jewelry evaluation room” with an HDTV tuned to sports that the customer watches while the clerk fetches some pieces to review. Or, throw in a stuffed teddy bear, a small box of candy, or a rose to make Mr. Shopper seem even more thoughtful to his honey.

The message: Repackaging someone else’s strategy is just throwing good money after bad.