Michael Hill CEO Daniel Bracken reveals how the business is marketing its laboratory-created diamonds.
What are the key similarities between lab diamonds and natural ones? What are the differences?
Laboratory-created diamonds and natural diamonds share essentially the same chemical and physical (including optical) properties and crystal structure.
They are both made of carbon, and display the same level of hardness (10 on the Mohs scale).
The difference is their origin.
While natural diamonds are formed below the Earth, laboratory-created diamonds are grown using cutting-edge techniques and equipment that mimic the natural process.
How is Michael Hill raising awareness of lab-created diamonds?
Our marketing team have been ramping up communications around our 'Fenix' laboratory-created diamonds collection for the past few months.
We have educational articles online, and the team have been working this collection more and more into our social media conversations.
We have been seeing some positive engagement – in particular there has been a great response to the new styles in our Fenix collection, particularly the new engagement ring designs, thanks to some great imagery that really shows how beautiful these pieces are.
Lab-created diamonds
In stores we have a hardcopy booklet which introduces customers to laboratory-created diamonds and our exclusive Fenix collection, and our store staff are trained on the collection so they can answer customers’ questions and help them to make the best purchase choice for them.
How does Michael Hill plan to grow this offering?
We are developing new engagement ring styles such as halo designs, which our customers are asking for.
And we have developed a very exciting and modern jewellery collection for launch next year.
It will feature mainly earrings and pendants in a variety of laboratory-created diamond shapes and setting styles.