You really can make people believe a lie... with good advertising

exellent easy to view to ready and well desgined anyone who could do the same design

Interesting.

How many on here think they could write a successful piece persuading women to give up the expectation of a ring?

What approach would you take?

What an incredible cynical view...we share.

Think of all the things that are culturally demanded, that were simply made up.

Valentine's Day is full of embellishments:

St. Valentine's Day began as a liturgical celebration of one or more early Christian saints named Valentinus. Several martyrdom stories were invented for the various Valentines that belonged to February 14, and added to later martyrologies.[2] A popular hagiographical account of Saint Valentine of Rome states that he was imprisoned for performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry and for ministering to Christians, who were persecuted under the Roman Empire. According to legend, during his imprisonment, he healed the daughter of his jailer, Asterius. An embellishment to this story states that before his execution he wrote her a letter signed "Your Valentine" as a farewell.[3] Today, Saint Valentine's Day is an official feast day in the Anglican Communion,[4] as well as in the Lutheran Church.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine%27s_Day

Anyone can mine for their own diamonds within the United States. And surprisingly a lot of nice diamonds are found there.

Diamond Mines - Crater of Diamonds State Park

Always thought it would be cool for my son to propose to his girl with a diamond he mined himself when the day comes.

My girlfriend used to sell luxury jewelry...she'd rather invest the money in an awesome honeymoon.

She's a keeper

You can make people believe (a lie?)...

There's something in psychology known as the Barnum Effect.

You give a class a list of questions to answer about themselves.

They answer the questions.

They get a profile back about themselves.

Here's the profile based on their results...

now, pay attention to the results, everyone in the class gets the same exact results back...and overwhelmingly everyone in the class thinks it's a reading that describes themselves exactly.

Read the following and see if it describes you too:
_____

You have a great need for other people to like and admire you.

You have a great deal of unused capacity, which you have not turned to your advantage.

Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside.

You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations.

You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others statements without satisfactory proof.

You have a tendency to be critical of yourself.

At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing.

At times you are extroverted, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved.

While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them.
______

It fits all of you.

My point is this:

There's a couple concepts in marketing that work without fail.

1. People will believe almost anything if they think it's coming from a reliable source.

2. In order to market a product you need to start a movement.

There have been a lot of books written on starting a movement, a following, a cult, etc.

The basics of starting a movement are you need to recruit at least one reliable person or source.

The person or source you recruit then takes over as the spokesperson for your product. I.E. they start the movement. Once the movement gets started others join in.

If you're into marketing a product, the whole movement thing is a must read.

In the De Beers example, they used movie stars to promote their message.

Now, having said all that about the post, engagement rings were actually not started by De Beers, but they were definitely pushed into the mainstream by them.