The Idea: A pro-social alternative to diamonds. A gemstone similar in price and prettiness, but the profit goes to charities instead of diamond companies who raise rice by controlling supply, and exploit native populations.
There are two reasons people wear diamonds and other jewelry: They're pretty and they signify wealth. They could also signify caring about poor people or disease or the environment, while not sacrificing the other two reasons.
So basically people would buy jewelry from us at a high price, and the profit would go to some charity of our or their choosing. The jewelry would have a unique look, that after a marketing campaign would be tied to our company and would signify that the wearer cares about making the world a better place.
I really think it would be quite successful. Part of the reason everyone wore those livestrong bracelets was because it was a way to show people you donated to cancer research. It's extremely trendy to show that you care about the environment and less fortunate populations. Celebrities would love it, and that would be a ton of free publicity. Jewelry is a huge industry, both in terms of number of users and revenue, but most users a little frustrated by the feeling that the money is wasted. Displays of wealth and rampant consumerism aren't all that hip anymore. But displays of caring are. My education in marketing would probably help us get funding, support, and publicity.
I haven't made final decisions about everything. The key question is what we actually sell. Maybe it's a fake diamond that is colored. Maybe different colors signify different causes (green=environment, red=disease, etc). Maybe we do some fancy dying technique and it's really multi-colored. Maybe it's cut differently, like in a sphere or an angel. Maybe it's a different identifiable gem that we would buy up and then sell at a marked up price. Maybe it's not a gem but a material (so not a diamond alternative but a gold alternative). It just has to be unique and recognizable. It probably should be difficult to fake, but I don't think fakes will be too big of a problem.
So there's the idea. I hope to follow through with it, but I need business partners.
13 comments:
One thought - this would take over your entire day unless you had a decent sized staff.
And I still think selling footprints made out of carbon would best. When asked how you got the carbon, and if trees were killed, you say "Aren't you listening? These are CARBON FOOTPRINTS. We're healing the world."
the difficulty will be the first step. finding the perfect piece. If they are extremely rare, then they will be expencive to buy. If they are common, then people will already have them. They must be shiney, tasteful, small, noticable, and able to go with different outfits(like diamonds.)
I think gold is out of fasion. diamonds are diamonds. silver is always around. perhaps some sort of hand-crafted silver. But that is already pretty well marketed. maybe it could be a certain type of fabric or style, like gucci, with a plentiful amount of logos. We could sell it in aspen and retire once it had brand recognition.
I'm intrigued by the idea. once the perfect product is thought of, a decent business plan and some subconsious marketing would create the brand recognition that would make the business self sustaining. Maybe it could even have different priced items of different colors, so the rich could still show off their status, but the middle class can still show off their caring, which is kind of the point.
I also noticed this is kind of a mix of "Blood Diamond" and "Hancock."
The material could be symbolic, like making a necklace with coffee beans that is clearly in the style of a diamond or gemstone necklace, glazed with shimmer and set in silver (or gold, though I agree with Jeremy on the metals). The implications would be clear, and they could be pretty too.
Is there any way of guessing what the next symbol of awareness might be? Any new plights to hone in on? Diamonds gave way to coffee, and coffee's been around for a while, so surely someone has already found the next new issue and we could piggy-back off it. Iron ore, maybe.
two words.
petrified wood.
You know how they make diamonds out of the carbon from your deceased pets. You could do the same thing with hemp. Set up shop in california, oregon, or even colorado....create your own supply and target bleeding hearts and hippies. This way you could finance your idea yourself by selling pot and using the plants for your carbon diamonds. If you're adverse to diamonds, then find out if you can make some other gem with the carbon. Jeremy?? You're the chemist right?
Everyone has ideas, few act on them. While sitting here musing on the subject I am looking at a giant crystal clear picture of a mountain (thank you again cheese). I am thinking something along the lines of some sort of high altitude stone...maybe there is some sort of lichen pattern or stone type that you can only get at high altitudes...maybe sherpas bring down stones in return for profits going to building local schools...maybe some sort of regional stone like a chinese limestone ring, peruvian granite, african quartzite...charge a variable rate, where the areas that are the most impoverished command a higher price...How 'bout a deep sea stone that we harvest by dragging along the bottom of the ocean maybe 2 miles deep or something...save the whales.
All of these are going to be difficult to market as environmentally friendly as you would be essentially "mining" on a microscale.
how about flip flops or something similar that have a different style for each region you are giving to. Like a certain style for Darfur, or even like a style for Hurricane victims. I think a lot of different people are trying to make like shoes for Africa or Bikes for Africa but the beauty of the livestrong bracelet was that there was almost no initial outlay or research it pure symbolism.
great to see so discussion and ideas on this.
I also thought a lot about what the actual product would be. It's a tough call. My thought was that key #1 was that it was unique. Next you worry about trying to ward off the imitators. I think that's going to be inevitable, and not too huge of a problem for the following reasons:
1) add some design, copyright it.
2) people would buy from you anyway, because that way it's actually going to help something
3) anyone who's into wearing fake brands and jewels isn't going to really be our target market anyway.
It would be ideal that it had some symbolism. Coffee or the next coffee. hemp or soy or something linked to earth. Maybe if we stick with gem, it's a tiny glass-ish sphere that looks like the earth. Do hemp diamonds look differently? I also liked the idea of giving it a subtle reference to buddhism.
I loved the petrified wood idea. Beautiful, rare, and meaningful. But it can be created in the lab, and i owned some as a little kid, so actually not really that rare, but again, that's ok. It has a strong tie to forest/environment, so i don't know if it would alienate all the people that only donate for disease or poverty. So that leads to the idea many of us had of making it depend on what you donated to. So maybe it's a consistent setting for the gem, with a total of 5 or so stones that can be put inside, each symbolizing a different cause/amount combo. That sounds about right to me at the moment.
Having this be a brand for clothing or footwear would be the easiest way, but for some reason gem seems cooler. not sure why.
Yes, so far it's just an idea. And there's a good chance it will remain that way. But I've had it pop into my head several times a month for about a year now, and the more i think about it the more i want to do it. It doesn't seem to be leaving. And I'm in a position to make it happen. My job will be to talk to motivated kids about marketing while encouraging alternative career paths, and this will probably come up frequently. I'll also be spending some free time helping nonprofits, where this could come up as well. I fully intend to do it. My faith in my time-consuming career path forbids me from doing it alone though.
questions:
1) do you know a celebrity to get the ball rolling. this is absolutely crucial in light of the intentions you've outlined.
2) the yellow livestrong bracelet took off because it was symbolic not only of fighting cancer but enhanced by lance armstrong's miraculous nearly-dead-to-multi-time-tour champ. livestrong would not have started had it not been lance armstrong. how will you get this going?
I know a couple celebrities!
I'm thinking of how wood has grains and how it could look cool to push smoothed shards of glass into the grains. The shards could be different colors for different causes, and there would be a nice contrast between colors and textures, especially with a very thin hemp thread (this is a necklace, by the way). And the wood could be Pacific driftwood - automatic mini west coast customer base. Pretty cheap materials, too.
Barry Allen -
1) We have Jeff Goldblum AND Jake Busey
2) It will a penis carved out of petrified wood. This will take off on its own. Promotions from the Goldblum-Busey express will just be icing on the cake.
kyle on kule; busey may scare people. not sure how people would react to him yelling at them to buy dick shaped drift wood. we could make some hilarious comercials though.
cheese; there are many places that make man made diamonds out of carbon. they can make a variety of shapes(must be fairly symetrical) and add a variety of colors. It will still technically be a diamond, but it is cheeper, does not require the destruction of villages and war, and they are customizable. They are still kind of expencive though, which may help people initially talk themselves into buying one. It will also reduce the amount of charity per item.
Keep in mind that the livestrong bracelets weren't expencive to buy. they were cheep and available everywhere to everyone, which is how they became so popular.
Hemp is easy to use and cheep, but it is already tied to hippy. I think people in general are adverse to hippies due to the pot and psychedelics.
what about a petrefied wooden ring? it would stand out next to other pieces of jewlery and famous men could put it on a necklace if they don't like rings. its light weight, semi-fragile, and easy to make.
we need famous people, or at least someone famous people listen to. like a director telling them to mention it in a movie.
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