When a Diamond Marketing Campaign Sends your Customers to the Trash

A Dutch jeweler found out the harsh reality of jaded consumers and paid the price after sending a promotional mailing to his customers to celebrate the 10th anniversary of his store.

Johan de Boer sent his 4,000 clients a mailing asking them “Are you the lucky one?” Inside most of the envelopes were a zirconium stone but two hundred of the envelopes contained a small diamond.

De Boer hoped to receive a strong response from this mailing and see people coming into the store to check if their stone was a diamond, and drum up some business. Imagine his surprise when he saw only a small trickle and a very limited response.

He decided on calling a few of his clients and discovered, much to his horror, that most had ignored the mailing without opening it, believing it to be a junk mailing.

The phone calls did do the trick as thousands started rummaging through their garbage. “I was very naive. People nowadays do not trust mailings like these anymore,” he told De Telegraaf newspaper in conclusion.