TWO online jewellery retailers have been barred from using the word “diamond” without qualification in their advertising, said the Financial Times on Wednesday.
This was after Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority ruled their campaigns were misleading to consumers, the newspaper added.
The ASA found that Linjer and Novita Diamonds breached the advertising code by failing to make clear in paid Google and Meta advertisements that their stones were synthetic rather than naturally mined.
Both companies were told to include a prominent qualifier such as “synthetic” or “laboratory-created” whenever describing their products. The ads flighted in January.
The cases were brought by the Natural Diamond Council and the London Diamond Bourse, industry bodies that represent mined diamond interests.
CEO of the NDC Amber Pepper called the rulings “a victory for consumers”, while London Diamond Bourse president David Troostwyk said they sent a “strong message” that misleading advertising would not be tolerated.
Linjer said it had been unaware that its ads breached the code and would work with its agency to include appropriate language. Novita said it did not consider its advertising misleading but had nonetheless amended its ads to place “lab” before “diamonds” in the interest of clarity.
Lab-grown diamonds are produced using energy-intensive machinery at temperatures exceeding 1,000°C, replicating the crystal structure of natural stones, said the Financial Times. They are significantly cheaper to manufacture and have grown rapidly in popularity, capturing 17% of the US retail market by volume compared with just 3% in 2020.
The ruling is a boost for traditional diamond miners at a time when the synthetic segment’s rapid expansion has weighed on natural diamond prices and demand.
