Industry Did 'Damage Control' Before PrimeTime Expos Aired
By Jane Everhart
If, like most jewelers nationwide, you were on pins & needles on
Thursday, November 4, wondering if a highly publicized expos on
the diamond industry by ABC-TV's "PrimeTime Live" show would
ruin your business by painting all those who sell diamonds with
the same brush, you'll be glad to hear that Jewelers of America
and NW Ayer's Diamond Information Center teamed up to do damage
control even before the segment aired.
The two industry groups, using NW Ayer's high-powered public
relations division and JA's vast network of retail jewelry
spokespersons, did a one-week day and night telephone marathon,
contacting TV stations in 80 major markets nationwide, offering
them a videotape on the four Cs and the opportunity to interview
local retail jewelers who could present another point of view on
the diamond business.
Some 40 TV stations took the industry team up on their offer: In
cities like Tulsa, Baton Rouge, and Bakersfield, Calif., viewers
saw not only the damaging expos but also, right after the segment
aired, a reputable local jeweler on camera who told them that the
majority of jewelers are upstanding, honest citizens who will not
cheat them.
Used Hidden Cameras
The PrimeTime Live show, a highly regarded hour-long news show
anchored by Diane Sawyer in New York and Sam Donaldson in
Washington, graphically exposed with hidden cameras how diamond
sellers on New York's 47th Street misrepresent the quality of
diamonds to the public and how unscrupulous jewelers can switch a
diamond brought to them for sizing or cleaning, putting a
lesser-quality stone in its place. Also touched on briefly was
the sale of fracture-filled diamonds without disclosure.
With $25,000 to spend, PrimeTime's producers went first to a
store called Diamond City on 47th Street, where owner Howard
Weisberg sold them what he called a "white, top of the line"
diamond for $3,700. But ABC had taken the precaution of having
two American Gem Society Certified Gemologist/Appraisers (GGAs)
waiting in the wings: Eric Freedman of Huntington, N.Y. and Cos
Altobelli of North Hollywood, Calif.
The two CGAs declared the Diamond City purchase not a white stone
at all, but a light tone of brown. "Helen Keller could see the
difference," quipped Freedman. PrimeTime also sent the stone to
the Gemological Institute of America's New York lab, which
confirmed that it was brown.
"Did the salesman simply make an honest mistake?" wondered
anchor-woman Diane Sawyer in a voice-over. To find out, the
PrimeTime team took the stone back to Weisberg to try to sell him
back the very same stone.
This time, Weisberg said their stone was a brown color and told
Prime-Time's incognito reporter that whoever sold it to her "had
lied a little."
PrimeTime Live bought another diamond on 47th Street: an
allegedly "near colorless" G-H from diamond salesman Howard
Jacobs. But AGS's Freedman declared it "an extremely yellow
diamond," an O-P, "a color so bad that nothing else about the
stone mattered." GIA also confirmed that it was yellow.
When PrimeTime went back to salesman Jacobs, he offered them $800
for it and commented that "whoever got you, they got you really
good." "PrimeTime was had," Diane Sawyer commented in a voice-
over.
Macy's F Color Is a K
PrimeTime also purchased diamonds at two Macy's stores, one on
Long Island, N.Y. and one in Paramus, N.J. The Long Island stone,
for $4,900, was graded one color too high and had more flaws than
the PrimeTime buyer was told.
In New Jersey, the supposedly "trained" manager of Macy's diamond
department said she didn't know what an ideal cut was, and for
$4,900, sold them what she described as an F color stone. The
Freedman/Altobelli appraiser team judged it to be a K color and
worth "in the high threes."
Home Shopping Network (HSN) also came in for its share of censure
from the PrimeTime team: A one-carat diamond cluster ring, touted
by HSN as being worth $1,200 and bargain-priced by HSN for
$399.95, was purchased by PrimeTime off the screen by telephone.
It was judged by the Altobelli/Freedman appraiser team to be
composed of mainly industrial-type diamonds.
"Basically, you have inclusions interrupted by small amounts of
diamond," commented Freedman.
Perhaps the most incriminating evidence of all fell upon jeweler
Ruud Kahle in a suburb of Philadelphia, accused of switching
stones after the mother of a PrimeTime producer, Ethel Rosen,
took a ring containing a $6,000-$8,000 diamond to him for sizing.
The stone had been plotted and etched on the girdle with an
identifying number by laser beforehand.
When Mrs. Rosen retrieved the ring, Eric Freedman was waiting
outside the store with a loupe.
Not the Same Stone
"This is not the same stone," Freedman declared, noting that
there was no number on the girdle of the stone that was now in
the mounting. It was also confirmed by AGS jeweler David Craig
Rotenberg, CGA, owner of David Craig Jewelers in
Langhorne/Newtown, Pa., that this was a different stone than had
been originally plotted.
When PrimeTime confronted jeweler Ruud Kahle on camera with the
news that it was not the same stone, he bristled that "this is
not very nice. I did you a favor."
"Well, it's not very nice to switch stones," retorted Ms. Sawyer.
An Expensive Lesson
"PrimeTime had bought six diamond rings for almost $22,000,"
summarized Ms. Sawyer at the end of the 20-minute segment. "Our
experts said we lost money on four out of five of them and the
sixth was taken. So we ended our outing $9,000 short-and a lot
wiser. Even if diamonds aren't forever, the shopping lesson is."
But in cities all over the U.S., that wasn't the end of it. In
Tulsa, Okla., for example, where Channel 8 had carried the
PrimeTime Live expos, the local station segued to jeweler Kevin
Moody, whose family owns Moody Jewelers in Tulsa.
"It was saddening," Moody commented about the PrimeTime expos,
and advised viewers to go to a "reputable jewelry store," and get
everything in writing. "Reputation is everything," he told Tulsa
viewers.
In Baton Rouge, La., the local station WBRB followed PrimeTime
with an interview with local certified gemologist Ken Gicas, who
advised viewers to "find a reputable jeweler the way you find a
doctor, lawyer or CPA. See an expert." The station also showed an
excerpt from the videotape on the four Cs provided by N.W. Ayer.
In Bakersfield, Calif., the local station presented Steven W.
Houston of Houston Jewelers right after PrimeTime Live, noting
that he has been in business locally for 20 years.
"Know your jeweler," Houston advised viewers. "Make sure he's
been in business a long time. Check the Better Business Bureau to
see if there have been any complaints against him. And if the
price sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
These post-expos interviews were not random or accidental. In
most cases, they were the result of the efforts of JA and N.W.
Ayer, the advertising/public relations firm that handles De Beers
advertising in the U.S.
"We found out about the expos a week before the show was aired,"
said N.W. Ayers' Joan Parker, director of the Diamond Information
Center (DIC). Realizing that time was of the essence, she
contacted JA chairman Michael Roman to enlist his aid in an all-
out effort in what Parker termed "crisis management."
JA swung into action, sending out letters to its members
nationwide alerting them to the PrimeTime expos and advising them
to be prepared to answer questions from the media or customers.
JA urged members to write to ABC-TV after the show, asking it to
do a follow-up or read their letters on-camera.
DIC to the Rescue
JA also targeted certain retail jewelry spokespeople in each
major market to talk to ABC News affiliates following the show,
briefing them on how to deal with possible questions.
The DIC swung into action too: A team of seven DIC public
relations professionals got on the phones, calling ABC-TV
affiliates in 80 markets literally day and night, said Parker.
"We offered the affiliates an opportunity to interview a
reputable jeweler in their town following the show."
DIC concurrently sent out a video news release about the four Cs
to the stations, which told people what to look for when they buy
a diamond, "so the stations could incorporate a four Cs message
into the interview-which a lot of them did."
Marathon Effort
The synchronized marathon effort worked. Some 40 stations said
they wanted to put a reputable local jeweler on the air after the
expos. In New York, Helene Fortunoff was filmed just before the
show aired-but unfortunately, probably due to the time element,
it was not used.
"The reason we had such a good response to our phone calls is
that the affiliates do think about putting on a local reaction to
such a show, and some of them had this in mind," said Parker. In
some instances, the local station had its own resource and had
already contacted a local jewelry spokesperson. "But the majority
did use the people we recommended," said Parker.
If the DIC people hadn't gotten on the phones, it is possible
that local stations would have given a negative local viewpoint,
Parker said. "On their own, they might have gone out to prove
that in their markets, it's just as bad as PrimeTime depicted,"
she noted.
Spokespeople Needed
"If we had more time, we would have spent more time with jewelry
industry spokesperson in each market, to prepare them for being
interviewed on TV," Parker said. Some of the JA spokespersons,
unaccustomed to being interviewed on camera, had not come across
as positively as hoped for, she noted. "But we didn't have the
time. We had a one-week window and we were trying to get on 80
stations.
"We've learned that what's needed out there are more really
professional spokespeople for the industry, in case something
like this comes up again. I think that's something we as an
industry should think about and perhaps the DIC can be helpful
there as well."
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