De Beers’ natural diamonds are in the rough

The age-old nature vs. nurture debate has entered a new arena: the diamond market.

De Beers, the world’s largest diamond producer, is starting a marketing campaign to push natural mined diamonds, at a time when they’re being outshined by consumers' new crush: lab grown bling.

• Lab grown diamonds account for over 25% of global diamond jewelry sales so far this year—a huge increase from 2016 when they accounted for just 1%, per industry analyst Paul Zimnisky.
• They’re also cheaper than natural diamonds, which has been eating into the company’s bottom line. De Beers’ parent, mining giant Anglo American, has slashed the book value of its holding in the diamond unit by ~45% ($4.5 billion) over the past two years.

In the face of these challenges…De Beers CEO Al Cook is going all-in on a new campaign to try and convince people that natural diamonds are “Worth the Wait.” He’s also called lab grown gems a “huge con,” and is pushing jewelry stores to buy a $9,500 machine that can tell customers whether their gems are natural or lab grown.

Looking ahead: Things could get even worse for the diamond giant if it can’t convince consumers to pony up for structurally-identical natural diamonds. Younger buyers, who overwhelmingly prefer the cheaper, lab-grown option, are predicted to account for 80% of luxury sales by 2030.