Platinum marketing organisation Platinum Guild International’s (PGI’s) July Insight report shows that strong and meaningful branded platinum jewellery collections, with innovative designs, are more appealing to consumers and provide greater emotional value to the jewellery.

PGI CEO Huw Daniel says platinum jewellery has a significant opportunity to expand its share of consumer spend through branded collections.

Branding and branded collections “ingrain platinum’s equity” as a premium metal of value and meaning, states PGI.

This approach, the organisation says, makes platinum jewellery a differentiated proposition for retailers to improve margin and profitability, grow new consumer segments and drive incremental growth.

The report reveals that, with many luxury categories of platinum jewellery, prominent retailers have created collection-based brands and products. On the contrary, many traditional jewellers have been slow to adopt an effective branding strategy at the product level.

PGI supports partners by identifying different consumer segments that are driving growth across major markets, Daniel says. “This varies by market, but our focus has been creating in-house brands or co-developing branded collections with partners to ensure platinum stays relevant to the consumer by leveraging its emotional value.”

After decades of consistent messaging, PGI states that platinum’s equity as a premium, high-quality metal associated with emotional value is firmly established across platinum’s major markets.

Within the jewellery industry, PGI says branding has been proven to be important to deliver meaning or messages to target- relevant consumer segments. For instance, in India – one of the largest gold jewellery markets in the world – the Platinum Days of Love collection was developed based on the insight that young couples seek a modern symbol of love and intimacy within the traditional arranged marriage.

By creating a “rare love” moment for spousal love-gifting, PGI says the brand has built strong desire and preference among its core consumer group by bridging traditional and modern values and symbols of love.

Increasing Margins and Profitability

Platinum’s strength lies in its ability to attach emotional value, which results in increased margins, while attracting new customers, says the PGI.

This has been evident in mainland China where Pt Moment – a nonbridal branded collection launched in 2019 by PGI to reflect the aspirations of Chinese Millennial consumers – has been expanded across more than 1 000 stores.

Incorporating designs that reflect current fashion trends, the Pt Moment collection is estimated to improve gross margins by 8% to 15%, compared with generic, plain products, and improve the average product turnover from over 12 months to an average of eight to ten months.

It has brought “excitement” to mid-sized retail partners, says PGI, which adds that the platinum jewellery sell-in volume of this collection grew by 19% year-on-year in 2020.

Further, PGI states that, as each market is driven by different social-demographic and cultural trends and spending behaviour, the unique properties of platinum can be localised by branded collections, thereby ensuring platinum stays relevant to evolving consumer needs, and captures opportunities in new segments.

Combining design and technology with the delivery of intangible value, PGI says branded collections ensure platinum drives increasing margins and stays relevant to consumers in growing new segments.

Moreover, to maintain the momentum that platinum has achieved during the past year, the organisation says branded collections will continue to play a significant role in the platinum jewellery global market strategy.