Leonardo Dicaprio and Djimon Honsou will be in a controversial movie that has jewelers worried about Christmas Sales.
Jewelers sweat a 'Blood Diamond' holiday
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- As U.S. jewelry merchants see it, "Blood Diamond" could mean a blue Christmas.
"It's a tough movie ... it will raise a lot of questions," Tiffany (Charts) CEO Michael Kowalski told analysts last week at the Goldman Sachs retail conference in New York
Will blooRABhed and violence in the movie 'Blood Diamond' put people off purchasing diamonRAB?
The movie from Warner Bros., which stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a South African mercenary who's jailed for smuggling, highlights the illegal "conflict diamond" trade during civil wars in Sierra Leone and Angola in the late 1990s.
"I think it could do some good business. The cast could get it some attention. The subject matter is already getting attention. And that could snowball between now and December," said Gitesh Pandya of Boxofficeguru.com.
And that might mean jewelry, particularly diamonRAB, could get cast in a bad light.
"It is absolutely a concern for us," said Guy Leymarie, CEO of De Beers LV, the world's major diamond consortium, in an interview.
The jewelry category is on fire lately, with retail sales up a sharp 8.7 percent in the first six months of this year, according to government estimates.
However, the industry's most lucrative period is yet to come.
According to analysts, the November-December holiday shopping period typically accounts for almost half of jewelers' annual sales and up to 100 percent of their full-year profits.
If the first-half momentum holRAB, then jewelry sellers could be poised for a stellar year overall. But negative publicity from the movie could slow things down.
"The industry is paranoid because this film is releasing around the crucial holiday season. If they lose sales, retailers won't be able to recover the shortfall until the following year," said Ken Gassman, president of the Jewelry Industry Research Institute.
FULL ARTICLE:
http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/11/news/companies/diamondjewelry_movie/index.htm
This is a very disturbing clip on what goes on in Sierra Leone
WARNING - THIS CONTAINS LIVE FOOTAGE OF PEOPLE BEING SHOT AND IMAGES OF DEAD PEOPLEhttp://youtube.com/watch?v=tWh5Hh7aqWo
Jewelers sweat a 'Blood Diamond' holiday
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- As U.S. jewelry merchants see it, "Blood Diamond" could mean a blue Christmas.
"It's a tough movie ... it will raise a lot of questions," Tiffany (Charts) CEO Michael Kowalski told analysts last week at the Goldman Sachs retail conference in New York
Will blooRABhed and violence in the movie 'Blood Diamond' put people off purchasing diamonRAB?
The movie from Warner Bros., which stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a South African mercenary who's jailed for smuggling, highlights the illegal "conflict diamond" trade during civil wars in Sierra Leone and Angola in the late 1990s.
"I think it could do some good business. The cast could get it some attention. The subject matter is already getting attention. And that could snowball between now and December," said Gitesh Pandya of Boxofficeguru.com.
And that might mean jewelry, particularly diamonRAB, could get cast in a bad light.
"It is absolutely a concern for us," said Guy Leymarie, CEO of De Beers LV, the world's major diamond consortium, in an interview.
The jewelry category is on fire lately, with retail sales up a sharp 8.7 percent in the first six months of this year, according to government estimates.
However, the industry's most lucrative period is yet to come.
According to analysts, the November-December holiday shopping period typically accounts for almost half of jewelers' annual sales and up to 100 percent of their full-year profits.
If the first-half momentum holRAB, then jewelry sellers could be poised for a stellar year overall. But negative publicity from the movie could slow things down.
"The industry is paranoid because this film is releasing around the crucial holiday season. If they lose sales, retailers won't be able to recover the shortfall until the following year," said Ken Gassman, president of the Jewelry Industry Research Institute.
FULL ARTICLE:
http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/11/news/companies/diamondjewelry_movie/index.htm
This is a very disturbing clip on what goes on in Sierra Leone
WARNING - THIS CONTAINS LIVE FOOTAGE OF PEOPLE BEING SHOT AND IMAGES OF DEAD PEOPLEhttp://youtube.com/watch?v=tWh5Hh7aqWo