Over its first 40 years in the diamond business, Vancouver’s Spence Diamonds focused almost exclusively on a mass radio strategy featuring ads that many people loved to hate. While memorable, the ads resulted in negative perceptions of the brand, as some people “thought that the quality of the product was just as bad as the ads,” as a Spence case study puts it.
As Spence’s new CMO, Veeral Rathod plans to take the company in another direction. Named to the role a month ago, Rathod believes the brand can leverage its competitive advantage – an extensive product offering and customer-centric strategy – to further grow its business in markets across North America.
Rathod (pictured, right) co-founded American menswear brand J. Hilburn, which built its business around offering custom-tailored clothing for men, and sees many parallels between the apparel and diamond industries. He replaces Frank Hamlin, who became the brand’s first chief marketer in May, only to leave for a role with American video game company, GameStop.
While leading J. Hilburn, Rathod spent little on traditional paid marketing, choosing to focus instead on building a brand focused entirely on the customer. And he believes Spence has laid the groundwork for a similar strategy.
Read more about Not For Sale’s influence on this diamond business here: http://strategyonline.ca/2018/09/18/how-spence-diamonds-new-cmo-plans-to-grow-the-company/
