Time Inc. has announced that In Style Weddings will not longer be in publication. For a niche industry such as bridal, this is not good. This is actually very bad. Why? Well - let me tell ya!!!
When most consumers conduct their initial research on the Internet, they are met with online retailers that for the most part sell very similar products. Some of these sites are very good, but many might not be. If you are an individual that is in search of information and only information about wedding bands and engagement rings, then you must turn to blogs and bridal magazines to do so. Or just show up to your jewelry store of choice and hope that the individual behind the counter is an expert. And as similar to the online retailers, many jewelry store employees are well informed and educated, but many are not. Hopefully you can find a store that has properly trained and educated individuals that can correctly explain the differences between platinum, palladium, gold, titanium and tungsten. Most consumers buying jewelry have a blank slate – they don’t really know much about what they are buying. So if they are exposed to bad information, then they can only accept what they learn as truth.
For those individuals that choose to travel to Barnes and Noble, Borders or their local bookstore of choice, there will now be fewer publications to choose from. With less bridal magazines, the consumer will have only exposure to the brands that advertise with what is left. At this time, most bridal jewelry manufacturers are not search engine savvy and rely on the wedding books to earn their traffic. Now whether they realize this or not is another issue all together!
According to TheWeddingReport.com, the amount of weddings is not decreasing despite the economy. An average of nearly 2.2 million couples need wedding bands and that number will continue to rise. So the audience is there. What is not there is a glut of jewelry advertisers. Most manufacturers cut advertising and marketing when things go bad and hope to weather the storm. They don’t just reduce or better target their spending – they most likely eliminate it or come pretty close to do as such. As an industry professional, I can only shake my head. The handful of smart and savvy companies are actually strengthening their position and therefore strengthening their selling point. Whether it is true or not, there is a general school of thought around the “jewelry industry campus” (from the retailers prospective) that if you don’t advertise, then you may not be a brand to reckon with. Sometimes this is true, but sometimes this is not. And quite honestly, there is too much of a “sheep” mentality in the jewelry industry. When one major brand lessens their visibility, then others will most likely follow.
Now I fully understand that a lot of companies need to cut advertising to stay in business. That is a reality. But many others have been doing well for years, and just never really properly allocated the 5% of their gross sales that they probably should for proper advertising and marketing. When times are good, then you can easily get away with it. When times are not so good, then a swift downward spiral can start, continue and be very difficult to stop. And everyone looks to each other and asks – “what happened?” To me, that’s like saying the Titanic sunk because the weather turned a little bit cold. There was a set course, there were warning signs that went unnoticed or unheeded before it was too late, and then there was a disaster. Now that the water is flooding the hull of the jewelry industry’s ship, hopefully there’s a way to stop the sinking, and at once repair and redirect the ship.
Comments