Jewelers of America has been formulating a marketing campaign, “Another Piece of Your Story,” designed to promote the entire fine jewelry industry, since mid-2018.

Now the trade organization has shared the results of a consumer marketing test campaign and has announced that it’s assembled a Consumer Marketing Committee composed of representatives from across the jewelry industry (more on that in a minute).

JA’s consumer marketing test campaign, created in collaboration with advertising firm Cramer-Krasselt, focused on female self-purchasers outside of traditional gift-giving times.

It consisted of paid social media ads on Facebook and Instagram, an influencer program, and Your Finest—a website that connects consumers “to the stories and jewelry from the campaign,” in addition to retailers from which they can buy jewelry directly, according to a statement from JA.

Four Los Angeles–based influencers were identified and hired as campaign contributors. The influencers shopped at a retail jeweler, selected jewelry they loved, then shared “Another Piece of Your Story” on their social media accounts, as well as on yourfinest.com. The influencers created 13 pieces of content over the six weeks.

So what happened? All good things, it appears.

The test campaign ran Sept. 23–Nov. 3, 2019, and more than 3 million unique consumers were reached during the six weeks. The influencers generated more than 17.5 million impressions. Respondents who saw the ads, visited the website, or interacted with influencers were “more likely to believe jewelry becomes more meaningful with wear and believe you should have nice pieces of jewelry.”

Eighteen percent of visitors to yourfinest.com searched for a retail jeweler. And of those, 27% clicked through to link to a retail jeweler’s website. Those exposed to the campaign were 22% more likely “to consider purchasing jewelry for themselves than those that were not exposed to the campaign.”

JA’s new Consumer Marketing Committee will work to keep the momentum from the test campaign going by creating “a funding mechanism that will support a multiyear, national campaign,” according to a JA statement.

The current Consumer Marketing Committee members include: Sarin Bachmann of JCK & Luxury; Katherine Bodoh of American Gem Society; David Bonaparte of Jewelers of America; Gannon Brousseau of Couture; David Bouffard of Signet Jewelers; Caryl Capeci of Chow Tai Fook North America; Kirsten Darrow of Fred Meyer Jewelers; Dominick Gabriel of Gabriel & Co.; Michael Lerch of Goldstar Jewellery and the Plumb Club; Mark Smelzer of Mark Smelzer (he is also the publisher of JCK magazine and JCKonline.com); and Dominick Sorresso of Rogers Enterprises Inc. Additionally, the committee will help move forward the plans to launch in additional markets in 2020.

Top: Social media style influencer Chris Han featured on yourfinest.com (photo courtesy of Jewelers of America)

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