The right-hand ring: Good idea, or just good marketing?
Industrious women are buying rings for their right hand to celebrate their independence, hard work, and accomplishments. Or are they?As the holiday season approaches and we are inundated with Christmas jewelry ads, I am seeing more and more campaigns aimed at "power women" with gorgeous and dazzling diamond settings designed (supposedly) for right-hand wear only. The styles, sizes and settings are billed as fun, flirty, and a deviation from the traditional wedding/engagement bands. "Treat yourself -- you've earned it! Women work and can buy for themselves!" scream the ads in large print, placed in women-centric magazines and television programming.
While I love a diamond as much as the next gal, I have to wonder if this isn't all a clever marketing trick, designed specifically to prey on our culture's current obsession with working, powerful women and mothers. And even if it is such a ploy, is it harmless, or should we be worried? American consumerism is great, and is largely why our opportunistic country can thrive the way it does. But do we really need another Hallmark Holiday, wrapped up in shiny paper and aimed directly at some perceived flock of unwitting female consumers with money to burn?
Or, perhaps, I'm just being a Christmas Scrooge. What do you think about the right-hand ring?
Tags: advertising campaigns, Christmas, diamond marketing, diamond ring advertising, diamond rings, diamonds, Hallmark Holiday, jewelry, jewlery for independent women, jewlery for working women, marketing campaigns, right-hand diamond rings, right-hand rings, rings for independence, scrooge, unique diamond settings, women's diamond rings, women's jewelry, working women






Manta, 11-27-2006, 12:33PM
I really don't like the "right hand" ring marketing campaign. Since when have women had issues treating themselves? Isn't that what shopping is all about? No, this campaign is the diamond industry's attempt at reaching an untapped market: single women. They make enough money off of engagement/anniversary rings, but they want to make more off of single women who are lamenting the lack of one unattainable status symbol- the engagement ring.
Ladies, by all means treat yourself, buy yourself jewelry, clothes, shoes, gadgets whatever. We do deserve it. But don't do it because one industry wants to double it's customer base by feeding on your insecurities about being single, and don't tell me that the whole "right hand" label doesn't specifically target single women.
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