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Florida Diamonds
Carat Factory
A Sarasota company can manufacture diamonds as real as those that come out of the ground. Selling them, however, is a multifaceted problem.
 "We’re getting very close to basically funding our own way through operations." — CEO Stephen Lux [Photo: Jeffrey Camp] |
But Gemesis believes that calling its stones “synthetic” would signal to consumers that its diamonds are not real. The FTC has yet to issue a statement on the dispute.
Marketing
As the dispute over what to call Gemesis’ stones evolved, so did the company’s business plan. By 2002, Gemesis had solved its technical issues and began producing stones. The company started out by cutting and polishing its own diamonds and distributing them directly to retailers. That changed, however, after Clark McEwen, Gemesis’ chief operating officer and a veteran of the diamond industry, joined the company in 2005. McEwen convinced the management team that Gemesis would be better positioned if it sold uncut, unpolished diamonds in the rough, as De Beers does.
The company also experimented with a marketing campaign that played to consumer awareness of so-called “conflict diamonds” — mined diamonds that are illegally traded to fund conflict in parts of central and western Africa.
Within two years, however, the company abandoned that marketing strategy. For one, most of the jewelry designers using Gemesis diamonds create pieces that also contain mined diamonds. “We’re part of the diamond industry, so something that is bad for the diamond industry in general is not going to help our case,” says Stephen Lux, CEO and president of Gemesis.
Perhaps the biggest strategic decision for Gemesis has involved what kind of diamonds to produce. So far, the company has chosen only to produce fancy colored diamonds — stones ranging from yellow to orange that are scarcer in nature than traditional “white” diamonds. Gemesis plans to begin marketing pink diamonds sometime next year and then blue diamonds — both rare commodities in nature.
Lux says the company may introduce cultured white or colorless diamonds in another five years, when a projected shortfall in mined white diamonds is expected. In the meantime, Gemesis is taking pains to differentiate its product from mined diamonds — in part to ease fears in the natural diamond industry that lab-grown diamonds might flood the market without being identified as such. To avoid any confusion, Gemesis’ stones carry a unique inscription that says “laboratory grown” or “Gemesis created.” The tiny inscription can be viewed through a loupe, the eyeglass used by jewelers.
