Speaking of this, Hu Yiming saw that the students in the audience listened attentively, so he began to talk about the most important part of the diamond hype: brainwashing.

After the preliminary preparations for diamond hype, the connection with love, and the connection with artwork are all done, the core part begins.

Doing an advertisement that doesn't generate direct sales, doesn't require the viewer to remember the brand, is just a concept – the eternal sentimental value that surrounds a diamond. During this period, the advertising slogan "A Diamond is forever" was proposed, accompanied by a picture of a young couple on their honeymoon.

"Chocolates, flowers, furs," one report reads, none of these gifts can satisfy a woman's deep psychological need for a "renewed romance". Through advertising, people eventually saw the gift of diamonds after many years of marriage as a symbol of "love that lasts forever".

And after that, new challenges came, and new requirements were put forward for the hype.

Diamond mines were discovered in Siberia at the end of the 50s in the USSR and were desperately exploited. De Beers and his allies were no longer able to control the supply of diamonds, and then realized that competition with the Soviet Union would inevitably trigger price fluctuations, thus eroding the carefully cultivated public's confidence in the value of diamonds.

Oppenheimer believed that neither side wanted to see the collapse of the image of diamonds, so he gave the Soviet Union a direct offer, taking all the Soviet diamonds and realizing control over the world's diamond supply. After the Soviet Union accepted it, it became one of the partners of this cartel, a co-protector of the image of the diamond.

Almost all Soviet diamonds were less than half a carat in their rough state, and there were no retail outlets for such bully melee diamonds at the time. After a close agreement with the Soviet Union, De Beers asked the Soviet Union to gradually reduce the production of Siberian mines. But the Soviets didn't care, and production rose at an incredible rate.

Because of the increase in melee production, the hype has become the same as the size of the diamond in the engagement ring as a sign of the strength of the other party's commitment. A sales strategy for melee diamonds was launched, focusing on "quality, color and cutting process are more important than size". The 0.25 carat photo replaces the 2 carat diamond ring.

The message to the public is that women should consider the perfection of the diamond rather than the size, and that a small diamond can be as perfect as a large diamond. This new ad has been a huge success again. The average size of diamonds sold fell from 1 carat in 1939 to 0.28 carats in 1976, essentially equal to the average size of Siberian diamonds sold by De Beers.

However, American consumers have become accustomed to buying small diamonds, and even think that large diamonds are showing off. By the mid-70s, the advertising of small diamonds had already shown to be overdone.

"Sales of large diamonds (over 1 carat) have been declining for the past three years." And this trend will continue, with "the pricing discount for big diamonds reaching 20%".

So at this point, the focus of the hype has changed again, and it has changed back to making the public pay attention to big diamonds. Excessive discounting of large diamonds is considered inappropriate, but an immediate cessation of diamond advertising would hurt the existing marketing partnership that has been advertising for 15 years.

So the hype was to replace melee diamonds with diamonds of 1 carat or more, subtly returning the public's preference and price focus to single diamond jewelry. It is the opposite of the popular advertising concept of "small is beautiful" in 1965-1970.

Speaking of this, Hu Yiming paused for a while, and then concluded: "The hype at the marketing level is all based on demand. This series of hype about diamonds, when there are many broken diamonds, they hype that broken diamonds are good, and when big diamonds can't be sold, they hype big diamonds are good. ”

"This embodies the highest level of marketing, hype, which is to instill in you the concept that you will completely think is true!"

Hu Yiming asked: "The story of diamonds has been told so much, are you tired of listening to it?"

There was applause from the audience, and someone shouted: "Teacher Hu is very good, let's talk more." ”

Hu Yiming smiled, drank a little water, and continued.

How can your hype make people think it's true?

I think the most important thing is to get to the bottom of people's hearts before they hype.

There was a study that found that diamonds as gifts contain a strong element of surprise. When a man gives a woman a diamond gift, half of the time the woman does not participate in the selection or does not know about it in advance.

Women generally want to have a sense of surprise when they receive a gift, and they feel like they have been electrocuted. The deeper reason is the feeling of "escaping guilt".

Some of the women interviewed noted that if their husbands asked for their opinion when buying gifts, such as diamond jewelry, their natural reaction was to oppose spending that much money.

So, what kind of scene can make a man buy diamonds without hesitation?

Learn about women's deepest feelings about diamond jewelry, and further study the semi-passive role that women play in the process of receiving diamonds. The male-female character interaction in this process is similar to the relationship between men and women in Victorian novels, with men taking the initiative and women being more subtle and mysterious.

In interviews, women's impressions of large diamonds are "flashy, tacky, excessive" and so on. However, research has also found that underneath these negative attitudes lies a primal impulse to acquire them. Diamonds are always a clear sign of success, status, and career.

It's easy for a woman to feel that diamonds are vulgar and still show joy when they receive diamond jewelry.

Speaking of this, Hu Yiming smiled and said: "To put it simply, a woman's attitude towards diamonds is that she wants and is afraid of being embarrassed. ”

There was laughter in the audience, and many people didn't expect that Hu Yiming could not only tell a serious story, but also make a crude analogy. But that's it, but it goes into simple terms, and I can understand it all at once.

Hu Yiming continued: "So, at that time, the problem to be solved by the diamond hype was to make women not feel ashamed when they received diamonds, and to let men know that women really want big diamonds." In this way, men will buy with all their might, and women can accept it calmly. ”

To get a man to buy a diamond for a woman, the ad must focus on the psychological impact of the "surprise" that occurs when the gift is given. What a man needs is not the value, tradition, or beauty of diamonds, but the hope that a "gift of love" will elevate his status in the eyes of women. On the other hand, a woman accepts such a gift as a symbol of her own status and achievement.

A woman's surprise when accepting a gift of diamonds, even if it is faked, serves to alleviate contradictions, just as they do in the face of male temptation, allowing the woman to pretend that she is not actively involved in the decision, maintaining her innocence and getting the diamond.