October 2023 | Lab Grown Magazine

October 2023 | The Lab Grown Diamond Resource Book 22 Mailed to 24,000 Jewelers Monthly - To advertise call (888) 832-1109 | October 2023 23 Gooby, Silverstein & Partners is the advertising agency that wrote the “Got Milk?” slogan. They didn’t want to pitch it to the National Diary Coun- cil as they questioned their own tag line. It’s not grammatically correct and is rather elementary. But that’s exactly what over 37,500 diary farm families were seeking… a simple, memorable means of keeping milk top of mind. Twenty years ago, half pint, cardboard sealed milk was a staple on every school lunch tray. It was also waning in national sales; kids were opt- ing for juice. Years later, instant breakfast demand turned bowls of cereal into cereal bars. “Got Milk?” to the rescue on both points. Natural milk sales spiked, until the words “lactose intolerant” hit the main- stream. Yet, that’s not the reason you haven’t seen a “Got Milk?” ad (and you won’t in the foreseeable fu- ture). The reason why the campaign dried up was due to the floodgate of almond, oat, and soy “milk” initially riding the coattails of the natural milk awareness campaign, leveraging lactose in- tolerance, and pushing the price of cow’s milk prices down to record lows. Cow’s milk commanded consumers to walk to the back of the store to buy it. Now, it’s pushed to the side and on sale. Almond and soy “milk” varieties, like the brand “Silk” offers, presently outnumbers the natural selection by an aver- age of five to one. But, many of those seed-based “milks” are downsizing their containers as con- sumer demand is flatlining. Synthetic Semantics? Martin Rapaport is a fiery, passionate living leg- end. He is in an elite class as one of the most re- A frame from Martin Rapaport’s recent video warning to the diamond industry about the “primary problem,” and what could be considered a strategic, yet properly legal use of terminology specific to the adjustive “synthetic” as referenced to lab-grown diamonds.Photo: YouTube/ Rapaport (with YouTube- generated text captions).  spected and, at times, the most debated diamond professionals on the planet. So when his dire diamond warning was delivered stating, “…the diamond industry is in crisis and the situation is serious,” people were, and are listen- ing. What they heard next is, at best, confusing, and, at worst, scientifically complicated. Never one to mince words, when Rapaport deliv- ered his recent heartfelt diamond industry warn- ing, his word selection was die hard and deliber- ate. He stated, “…the primary problem facing the diamond industry is synthetic diamonds, and…” Hit the pause button, please. With the greatest of respect to Martin, there is no “and.” Denoting “primary” preceding the word “problem” means there is a single, concentrated, underling is- sue being called out. Oxford’s online dictionary defines the word “pri- mary” as: “the key, the foremost, the chief of im- portance, the principal.” It’s a bold adjective, and in this case, the alleged “ primary problem facing the diamond industry is synthetic diamonds,” em- phasized by Rapaport. Now look at the combined use of “primary” and the description of lab-grown diamonds as “synthetic.” If we return to the Oxford Dictionary as our guide to defining English words, then we must take note to the first word in the first line of the first mean- ing of “synthetic.” It reads: artificial . And, artificial also means fake. Oxf rd does offer a synonym to synthetic. That word is “man-made.” And here’s where things get really murky. Look up the synonyms to synthetic