Gen-Next Jewelers (GNJ) is taking steps to prepare for the future of the organization with changes to both its leadership and its mission. 

GNJ is excited to share several shifts and additions to its board. The organization welcomes two new members, Jennifer Apfelbaum of Marco Bicego and John Tierney of JCK Events. Lisa Nikfarjam of Lisa Nik has also taken over as Moderator of the organization, a position held by Michael Schechter of Honora since the organization’s inception in 2008. Schechter will continue to serve on the GNJ Executive Board.

Several of the founding members, including Josh Weinman, Russell Kwiat and Eric Halfacre have completed their term in order to make way for the new wave of Executive Board members. Those continuing on the executive board are Dan Gordon, Samuel Gordon, Sean Moore, Borsheims, Michelle Orman, Last Word Communications, Matt Rosenheim, Tiny Jewel Box and Jeni Weinman, Cora International.

In addition to the changes to the board, Gen-Next is approaching 2012 with the goal of “Moving Jewelry Forward” through several initiatives and an entirely new mission statement:

“Gen-Next Jewelers strives to create a proactive community of open-minded jewelry professionals dedicated to fostering new talent, new ideas and new relationships while honoring the heritage of our industry.”

“With the new mission statement, and our new educational and networking initiatives, there is increased enthusiasm among the executive board,” explains Lisa Nikfarjam. “We continue to believe that Gen-Next can play a significant roll in our industry and we look forward to hearing feedback from anyone who participates in our events so that we can continue to evolve and grow.”

Since it’s introduction, Gen-Next Jewelers has sought to create a platform where the next wave of the jewelry industry can connect. They look to continue evolving that mission in 2012 with a new wave of board members, a refined mission statement, events in both Basel and Las Vegas as well as an educational track on Saturday, June 2nd at JCK during Jewelry Market Week. 

For more information, please contact the organization at gennextjewelers at gmail (dot) com or signup for exclusive content and to be notified about future events and initiatives.

From Oliver Reichenstein:

If your offer is exceptional, your price can and should be. If you offer an exceptional product at low price it will be perceived and treated as a low value product, no matter how amazing it is.

Every now and again, my two favorite worlds of luxury and geekery collide. It is nearly impossible to draw a straight line between a Mac writing tool and the world of fine jewelry, however this quote from ia Writer owner Oliver Reichenstein seems so relevant to a growing challenge facing jewelers today. The ever present issue of price.

As information continues to become easily available on the web, price quickly becomes the center of many jewelry counter conversations. More often than not, we focus on the inherent value of the metals, the rarity of the stone, the quality of the craftsmanship. What we neglect to emphasize is the service and the in store experience. I’ve always believed that finding the cross roads between luxury product and luxury service is what is going to set retailers apart.

Great service from a company selling great products deserves a reasonable premium. In fact, it requires it. If you are charging bottom dollar, chances are that your experience is suffering and service is costly. On the other hand As Reichenstein reminds us at the end of his post, that premium has a limit:

The right price for a product is the highest price you can ask for, but with one condition: that your customers remain happy after they buy it.

Finding the right balance of price, premium and experience is no easy feat, but it is what it is going to take for brick and mortar jewelers to maintain their dominance in the face of emerging e-tailers and wired in consumers.

From Mitch Joel:

You have me. Create an experience.

Having a QR code on an ad simply to pander to the clients and checkbox the “mobile marketing” portion of your integrated advertising campaign is not only a bad advertising experience it’s a really negative brand experience that lingers. Think of the additional effort and permission that a customer is giving you to take out their mobile and spend the time to access your additional goodness… and that’s what you give them? Marketers have to up their game. A link to a YouTube video is simply not enough. Mobile – in and of itself – is a unique experience, so if you can’t take the time to creatively think about how a QR code component to your campaign can really be something special for those who walk the extra mile with your brand – especially taking into account where they are when they access it – you may as well drop it from your marketing mix.

Anyone who has ever talked digital marketing with me for more than 30 seconds knows that I have a fairly large aversion to QR Codes (those little back and white checkered things you are starting to see everywhere). It is an interesting technology that is extremely popular overseas, but tends to fall somewhat flat here in the US (especially when it comes to execution). There are plenty who will disagree with me, as QR seems to be the shiny new object, but I just don’t think it has the adoption we hope it does and I’m not quite sure it ever will.

I could rant on this subject for hours, but suggest you read Mitch’s post for a more measured look at why QR Codes just aren’t working.

From The Centurion:

Las Vegas, NV–Following a successful career at Roberto Coin and months of development, Lisa Nikfarjam has introduced her Lisa Nik collection in Las Vegas at the JCK Show.

Congratulations to our fellow GNJ Board Member, Lisa Nikfarjam on the official launch of her Lisa Nik Collection!

Everyone here at Gen-Next Jewelers wishes Lisa the best as she brings her new collection of designer jewelry to the market.

Click here if you would like to see more of Lisa’s designs.

Note: While I plan to spend some time this weekend writing up my thoughts for Jewelry Market Week in Las Vegas, I wanted to touch on one of my favorite happenings from the past two weeks in the desert!

Anyone who reads this blog regularly will know, I am a sucker for creative marketing. Taking chances and creating unusual experiences is something that we just don’t see enough of in the world of fine jewelry. When I do see something unique, I always want to 1) give credit where credit is due and 2) encourage you to get more creative in your own marketing initiatives.

I was excited to see that LA-based street artist Free Humanity and Erica Courtney teamed up to create 250 hand crafted “Diamond Dollar” bills (I’m totally calling them “Bling Bills”). These colorful creations were randomly (well not entirely random considering one of these bills ended up under the door of National Jeweler’s newest editor) placed around the Couture show. You could find them taped to walls, on water bottles, windshields and even slipped under a few doors.

More than the bills themselves, I love that Erica had the guts to leave a little bit of mystery. While I am yet to see the back of dollar, there is no apparent branding other than the “Live & Love Life” motto that has been with her business since the beginning. This lack of an identifiable brand piqued curiosity and encouraged many to go looking for the creator of this enigmatic piece of art. You have to give Erica credit… It takes a lot of creativity to come up with something different, but it takes real courage to do it without drowning that idea in a logo.

Since I’m “certain” that Erica is just holding on to my dollar for me, I wanted to send a little love her way for what is, by far, my favorite bit of marketing from Jewelry Market Week.

Hat tip to Hannah Connorton for sharing this story.

Tomorrow, the games begin as many of us head to Las Vegas to prepare for the first day of Jewelry Market Week. Things will be quiet here on the site, but we wanted to take a second to wish you all a great show!

For those who are attending, we hope you can join us on Sunday or Monday night as we enjoy the beach (and Bruno Mars) with JCK and wind down the show at Dos Caminos. All event details can be found here.

No matter where you are showing, have an amazing Jewelry Market Week. See you out there!

From JCK Magazine:

Take one look at how the digital revolution has impacted the marketing of industries like fashion and technology, and it’s clear that jewelry lags behind. Sure, we’re all adapting to phenomena such as social media faster than ever before, but it just doesn’t seem like the jewelry industry is experiencing the same explosion of online conversation as other sectors.

For this month’s JCK Magazine, I wanted to touch on a key ingredient that many of us in the Jewelry Industry are missing from our marketing, a sense of community. More often than not, we are so focused on our own sales pitch that we neglect the needs of the industry at large. Check out the full article for suggestions on how supporting others, may be the best way to help your own marketing efforts and let me know what you think!

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We wanted to give you all a quick update on what Gen-Next Jewelers has planned for the show. We are looking to create a new tradition for those of us who are around after last day of the show. To offer up an opportunity to get together and unwind or to recap the show (if you aren’t sick and tired of talking jewelry). We hope that you can join us on Monday, June 6th from 6:30-8:30pm at Dos Caminos over at the Palazzo hotel for drinks and conversation.

The bar will be offering a $30 deal for all you can drink beer, wine and margaritas for the two hour meetup, so it should be a great opportunity to take the edge off after a long week of buying and selling (hopefully) the latest the jewelry industry has to offer. The event is open to all, so please feel free to forward this message to anyway you think may be interested in attending. We hope to see many of you there and wish you the best of luck as you prepare for the trip to Las Vegas.

Also, JCK was kind enough to sponsor the Gen-Next Jewelers bungalow at JCK’s Rock The Beach party on Sunday, June 5th from 9-11pm, immediately following the Jewelers For Children dinner. Bruno Mars will be headlining and we will have plenty of drink tickets for all, so be sure to stop by! Please note that you must have a JCK Las Vegas badge for admittance.

From Dan Gordon in Instore Magazine

You owe it to your business to create an environment that incubates innovation.

Great advice for any store looking to unlock the potential of their team! Read the full article here.

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From Rob Bates at JCK Magazine:

On Twitter this morning, Andrew Hanelly, social media guru at TMG, which publishes JCK, asked, “Have you ever paid more for something because of the brand even though you knew there was a cheaper alternative?”

Michael Schechter of Honora answered that most people don’t buy generic cereals. And I brought up Apple products, to which Michael responded, “Alternatives and equivalents are not the same thing.”

Now, with all due respect to Michael and the magic of Steve Jobs, who has gotten a fair amount of my dollars, there are Apple equivalents out there. But, to a certain group, only Apple will do. The company has convinced consumers that Apple equals quality, so it’s “safest” to buy from that company. And, for that reason, its products are rarely discounted.

This isn’t something that Apple built overnight—it took years of branding, innovation, and a commitment to getting things right. But it has worked. We even see this in the jewelry industry. We all know that the Pandora doesn’t necessarily make the cheapest charms. But people buy them anyway, because of the power of its name.

The “discount culture” isn’t going away, and chances are the increased use of smartphones will keep price pressure on retailers. Yet the companies who can convince consumers their brand always equals quality, and that they have no equivalent, can still rise above it.

Ahhh, I love it when I get to talk about my three favorite things, technology, jewelry and store experience. However, I hate disagreeing with Rob, especially considering I count him as being significantly smarter than I am…

Rob makes several excellent points here, but I think he misses the big one that I was trying to make. I don’t think that Steve Jobs sold me on the Apple brand, I think he offered me the Apple experience. And while this may sound like the same thing to many, there is a big difference between the two.

While I love the Apple design aesthetic and specs, it isn’t the reason I pay the premium. It is for the operating system, which I find dramatically increase productivity and the store experience, which is second to none. It is for these reasons and not for the looks or even the specifications that I am willing to look at a $3000 vs. a $1500 comparable (but certainly not equal) computer and will not hesitate to buy Apple every time (For the record, my MacBook Air did not cost 3k).

Apple doesn’t have to convince me anymore, they’ve shown me time and time again that their experience is better. They don’t focus on the hardware, in fact except for geeks like myself, they make it irrelevant. They focus on what I can do with the computer and make it easy for me to see myself behind the keys.

To bring this home to jewelry, Pandora didn’t just create a bead category, they created a jewelry buying experience. I’ve been fortunate enough to buy from one of their locations and I barely felt like I was at a jewelry store. They weren’t trying to sell me on the value of the metal or the quality of the stones (they touched on it, but it was secondary). They were guiding me based on the meaning behind the beads. Now there are plenty of other people creating their own bead lines, but most of them are just trying to sell you hunks of silver with a hole drilled in them. Pandora on the other hand, crafted an entire experience, centered on an excellent product (like it or hate it, it has a very loyal audience) and has found a story that keeps them coming back for more.

As an industry, we are so obsessed with the specs, with our education and with gemology, but turn it around and ask yourself one important question. When buying your last computer did you really understand the difference between 2.0 GHz and 2.2 GHz or did you really just want to know how easy it was going to be to check your email on the damn thing? For many of our customers, it is getting to the point where the meaning is getting lost in all of the information.

It is why I believe that companies like Apple are winning and why businesses like Microsoft are quickly losing their sheen. It is going to be the retailers and manufacturers who focus on the meaning while enhancing the experience that will find themselves on the winning side of the discounting. Those that continue to try and sell me with facts and features will occasionally win my business, but more often than not the only thing that will put them over the top is the lowest possible price.