BIS asks gold buyers to trust Hallmark over brand or jeweller

The ongoing print and digital campaign educates consumers on the Hallmark logo and how to go about testing the purity of their gold purchases

After years of asking jewellers to ‘Hallmark’ the gold they sell, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has turned its attention to the consumer. Be it in the coins or the jewellery they purchase, the Bureau is asking them to check for its trademark. It has launched a campaign across print, television and digital media training buyers to look for the mark and also emphasising that no matter where one buys from, trust resides in the Hallmark and not the brand or the jeweller.

“This time the theme is strong, because there is a series of advertisements. Earlier advertisements were sporadic. This new campaign is practically a 'forever' advertisement,” said H L Upendar, deputy director general, Consumer Affairs, BIS. The ‘Diamonds are forever’ campaign is more than a century old and was launched by De Beers with a guarantee that the shine on their diamonds was the real deal.  According to several industry reports this is one of the most memorable campaigns across ages and product categories.

BIS is hoping for a similar impact with its new campaign that it has been tracking closely. The initial response has been very good, Upender said. For one, the number of likes on social media are mounting.

The campaign speaks to the young while highlighting the country’s age-old obsession for gold jewellery and the emotional equity invested in its purchase. Gold is not the average consumer product, it is not bought for utility nor is it a luxury buy. It is purchased by families across the income spectrum, hoarded for special occasions and handed down generations.

Trust plays a big role in such purchases and consumers are forced to place their faith in a jeweller or a brand, often either overpaying or settling for an adulterated product. The present campaign according to Somasundaram PR, managing director, World Gold Council is an attempt by BIS to create a consumer pull instead of the routine regulatory push to enforce hallmarking.

This would mean asking consumers to change the way they buy their gold. Neville Shah, executive creative director of Ogilvy and Mather, the agency that conceptualised the campaign said, “It is supposed to cause a shift in behaviour. And that’s the hardest.” The digital films educate consumers as to how to go about hallmarking their gold and bust some myths about purity and hallmarking, he added.

To reinforce the message, BIS and the agency decided that it was best to run a series of advertisements and follow through with a longer digital engagement. It was important to layer the narrative that urges a change in purchase behaviour with the traditional, emotion-laden approach that most Indian buyers have towards gold to make the campaign sticky and memorable.

The aim was to strike a balance between why one needs to look for the hallmark and how one must check its presence. The digital films are used to bring out the most common facts about hallmarked gold while the print ads use the line, ‘Not looking for Hallmark is like not looking at all!’

Advertising its hallmarking facility is not new for BIS. The Bureau has run an awareness initiative since the year 2000 and spends around Rs 200 million every year for all its advertisements (not hallmarking alone). The campaigns have resulted in better awareness among customers and increased the number of jewellers applying for hallmarking. There are over 724 hallmarking centres and in 2016-17, more than 19,000 jewellers approached them for certification, while the number crossed 23,000 in 2017-18. Till 2018 October, this number has increased to over 25,000.

Upendar said, “Hallmarking does not cost you a fortune, spending Rs 35 for the mark is not significant. We not only educate consumers but also jewellers through awareness programmes.” The number of pieces hallmarked last year was over 41.5 million and this year in the first six months, it has already crossed 25 million pieces of jewellery.

Somasundaram believes that India should adopt mandatory hallmarking as soon as possible. Unless this is done, he believes, gold would lose value among young, millennial consumers.  They are not comfortable with taking someone’s word for trust he said, adding, “Every new product, has a third party certification. Why not gold?”

BIS would like consumers to go a step further in fact. The Bureau is hoping that consumers not only purchase Hallmark gold, but that they do so from BIS licensed outlets.  “Millions invest their life savings in gold. They deserve pure and certified gold. Through this campaign, we aim to catalyse a mass consumer movement,” Upendar maintained.

There is another fallout that many in the industry foresee from a more aggressive intervention by the Bureau. Small jewellers could benefit from the move if consumers are assuaged by the Hallmark on their gold, they could look for pricing parity with the big brands. Already many associations have come out in support of the BIS campaign, the Indian Bullion Jewellers Association (IBJA) has tweeted its support. ‘Branded nahi, shuddh sona khariden’ (By pure, not branded) it said asking consumers to support BIS.

By forcing consumers to get more aware and more vocal about their requirements, the Bureau is also looking at cutting down the number of complaints and cases of fraud that plague gold buying in the country. The objective is to create a fair and transparent buyers’ market in the country and perhaps, avoid the kind of fraud inflicted on diamond buyers by the recent Nirav Modi-Mehul Choksi affair.