Chapter 912 Changing Two Words Destroyed De Beers's Job

Unmanned factories are not very special to the factories of Nanshan Group.

After all, efforts have been made in this direction several years ago.

Objectively speaking, if some products are produced by unmanned factories, the cost at this stage may not be advantageous.

After all, the investment in various automated production equipment is not low at all.

However, through the construction of such factories, the development of brother enterprises such as Nanshan Equipment and Nanshan Robotics can be promoted, and these enterprises can be promoted to obtain unmanned factory orders from other customers, and the final benefits will be considerable.

After several years of technological iteration, various unmanned factory projects jointly promoted by Nanshan Equipment and Nanshan Robotics have been relatively mature.

The artificial diamond unmanned factory invested by Nanshan Equipment is the latest project.

The first batch of dozens of equipment have been installed and are in use.

Other production equipment is being produced continuously on the assembly line. It only takes one month for this unmanned factory to have 300 more equipment.

The large six-sided top press is one of the core equipment for artificial diamonds.

This type of equipment is not unique in the industry, but Nanshan Equipment has fully utilized its advantages in the equipment industry and finally produced a large six-sided top press with higher efficiency and better performance.

"Mr. Cao, it is not very difficult for our artificial diamonds to replace natural diamonds in the field of industrial applications."

"However, the most profitable diamond industry is used in the jewelry field, which is basically monopolized by De Beers at present."

In the morning, Cao Yang was reported to the diamond production equipment. In the afternoon, Cao Yang went to the production factory to check it out in person.

After all, if diamonds are to be used in special occasions, the output needs to be sufficient and the price must be cheap enough.

Otherwise, even the most advanced products will be difficult to promote if the price is too high.

Why can so many Chinese independent brand car companies survive and grow? Is their technology more advanced than Mercedes-Benz and BMW?

Obviously not.

If a product is to sell well, it is very important to lower the price.

The contribution made by various Chinese independent brands in promoting the reduction of automobile sales prices is absolutely huge.

This is a credit that no one can erase.

Otherwise, don't even think about buying a Nissan Sylphy for 79,800 yuan or a Honda Accord for 149,800 yuan.

"De Beers has made money for hundreds of years, and it's almost enough."

"Leave the diamond market to us."

Cao Yang really doesn't have a good impression of De Beers.

In the early days, diamonds could only be mined in a few natural mines. The principle of scarcity makes things valuable, coupled with De Beers' successful advertising and marketing, made the rare diamonds sought after and sold at a high price.

But on the other hand, the carbon element that makes up diamonds is one of the least scarce elements on earth. From this perspective, diamonds are actually nothing special.

"Mr. Cao, the global demand for diamonds is still quite high."

"Although we have greatly improved the production efficiency and quality of artificial diamonds, it is probably still a bit difficult for us to completely shut down De Beers."

"We also did some research when we were researching this product."

"In Zhongyuan Province, the artificial diamond industry is actually developing quite fast, but they are mainly taking the low-end route."

"I think we can leave the low-end and medium-end fields to them, and leave the high-end fields to ourselves."

"By promoting these two methods together, China's artificial diamond production will eventually account for more than 80% of the world's total."

"Let those overseas artificial diamond companies find no living space to survive."

To expand the market for artificial diamonds, the best way is obviously to lower the price.

As long as this method is used, at least in the field of industrial application, sales can be quickly opened up.

As for the luxury goods market, this aspect is more particular.

The previous De Beers advertisement was called: Diamonds are forever, one diamond is forever.

Under their propaganda, diamonds are beautiful and rare, symbolizing love and loyalty.

They represent eternal and unbreakable love.

They are also often a symbol of expensive luxury, attracting countless people to be fascinated by the brilliance of diamonds.

But before the 18th century, diamonds were not great compared with other gems.

The transformation of the diamond from a phoenix to the "king of jewelry" is actually a classic marketing case.

Objectively speaking, it is still difficult to find another marketing method that can compete with it.

So De Beers has made so much money for a reason.

For a long time after the discovery of diamonds, they were just ornaments of royal and Confucian wealth, with a fixed source and scarce production.

Things changed at the end of the 19th century, when a diamond mine was miraculously discovered in South Africa, producing tens of millions of carats.

This was so surprising that the merchants who invested in diamonds were completely confused.

If these diamonds entered the market, the value of diamonds would drop significantly.

That's why the English businessman Rhodes founded the famous De Beers company in 1888.

From then on, diamond marketing began for a century.

The first step of De Beers was to control production.

They carefully controlled the production of diamonds, mining only a small amount of diamonds to sell each year.

The market was oversupplied and diamond prices stabilized.

At its peak, De Beers controlled 90% of market transactions and monopolized the entire diamond market.

The second step was to force everyone to buy diamonds.

Initially, diamonds not only showed a noble aura, but also had industrial uses.

However, since the advent of artificial diamonds, the diamond market has declined significantly, and most people no longer have the need to buy diamonds.

If diamonds cannot be sold, the diamond price system will also collapse.

In order to create demand for diamonds, the powerful De Beers did one thing: they linked diamonds with love.

After 1938, the Oppenheimer family, the real controller of De Beers, spent a lot of money on advertising to create the so-called diamond culture.

It is said that hard diamonds symbolize eternal love, and only diamonds are accepted as engagement gifts all over the world.

De Beers added diamonds to the movie.

Whenever a handsome man proposes marriage and kneels on one knee in front of his beloved beautiful girl, he will definitely propose with a diamond.

Diamonds are the witness of their love.

With the help of various superior advertising methods, the connection between diamonds and beautiful love is strengthened.

In the wedding photos, the bride wears a beautiful wedding dress, her face is full of happy smiles, and the diamond ring on her hand dazzles everyone.

The "diamond proposal" activities that De Beers uses a lot for advertising have been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

Thanks to De Beers' classic marketing strategy, diamond sales continue to grow every year.

Do you think this is all De Beers does?

No!

They have more means.

To give an example, Africa is rich in diamond mines. In order to compete for power and minerals, African warlords used labor to manually mine diamonds.

These warlords had no money to buy weapons, so they ended up getting diamonds. Then De Beers marketed the purchase of diamonds as financing genocide, calling them "blood diamonds."

De Beers signed the Kimberley Process Agreement in 2001, urging the world not to buy diamonds from war-torn countries.

The logic behind this is self-evident, because De Beers can control consumers, but he cannot control warlords.

If warlords sell diamonds in large quantities, the diamond market will get out of control.

Therefore, by closing sales channels, diamonds remain firmly in the hands of De Beers.

In addition, De Beers realized that although African warlords mined a lot of diamonds, they did not have the corresponding processing technology, so he came up with another trick: diamond technology.

…

Although De Beers' business methods are great, I'm sorry, you have raised the price of diamonds so high, which has increased the tool cost of Nanshan Equipment.

In addition, Cao Yang is also planning to let Venustech combine diamonds with gallium nitride power components to produce a new generation of active phased array radars.

At that time, there will be more demand for diamonds.

Cao Yang will definitely not let De Beers cut this knife.

If you want to cut me, then I will turn the table over.

"That's fine. If someone wants our production equipment, we can sell it."

"Of course, the one with the highest production and sales volume will be kept for our own use, and the others will be sold to the outside world."

"Priority will be given to customers in Zhongyuan Province, and foreign manufacturers will be considered later."

"There is another trick. Although they are both diamonds, the price of artificial diamonds is much lower than that of natural diamonds. This is unreasonable."

"You see, when you do maintenance at a 4S store, if you use natural motor oil, the price is cheaper than artificial synthetic motor oil."

"Because the quality of artificial synthetic motor oil is better."

"In terms of diamonds, in fact, the quality of artificial synthetic diamonds can also be better than natural ones. There is no reason why the price is the opposite."

After Cao Yang said this, Pan Jinxing immediately became interested.

Not to mention making the price of artificial diamonds higher than that of natural diamonds, even if the two can be equalized, it would be a very remarkable existence.

The purpose of Nanshan Equipment is to obtain a large number of cheap diamonds. As for whether these diamonds are produced by itself or purchased from outside, whether they are natural or artificial, it is actually not very important.

As long as the quality meets the use requirements, it is fine.

In this way, it is interested in anything that suppresses the price of diamonds.

Of course, it is also necessary to take this opportunity to sell a wave of diamond production equipment.

After all, natural diamonds are basically in Africa, polar bears and other places, and have little to do with China.

So whether it is China or the United States, the demand for artificial diamond production equipment is actually quite strong.

"Mr. Cao, I will try to arrange people to engage in a public opinion war to let everyone know that the quality of natural diamonds is not as good as artificial diamonds."

"Don't be fooled by the various propaganda about natural diamonds."

The trick Pan Jinxing can think of is to start with publicity.

This direction cannot be said to be wrong.

However, Cao Yang thought more ruthlessly, saying: "When diamonds are sold now, they are distinguished between artificial diamonds and natural diamonds. Since the two are essentially the same, there is no need to distinguish them."

"We can push the relevant departments to modify the definition of diamonds and no longer distinguish between artificial diamonds and natural diamonds."

"At the same time, we can also find a way to push the Federal Trade Commission of the United States to revise the definition of diamonds, delete the word "natural", and classify both natural diamonds and artificial diamonds as diamonds."

"The two most important countries in the world have revised the definition of diamonds, which will definitely bring a huge impact on the diamond market."

Cao Yang knew that even without his own promotion, the United States would do such a thing.

After all, the United States is not a diamond mining country, and protecting the value of natural diamonds is not good for them.

So as long as Cao Yang arranges people to push it behind the scenes, there will definitely be companies in the United States that will take the initiative to jump out and promote implementation.

At that time, the price of diamonds will definitely fall further.

Of course, Nanshan Equipment has also invested in a diamond cultivation factory, and it seems to be of no benefit to keep the price of diamonds very low.

But in fact, the final result is that the sales volume of diamonds has increased significantly, and the demand for artificial diamond equipment has increased significantly.

Nanshan Equipment has made a lot of money by selling various artificial diamond cultivation equipment.

As for Nanshan Equipment, in the future, its main goal will be to meet its own needs, and it will no longer expand its production scale at will.

After all, the price has been lowered. It would be a pity if it did not make much money after expanding the scale.

"Mr. Cao, I think this will work."

"But in this way, we will offend De Beers, which is equivalent to smashing their rice bowl."

Although Pan Jinxing is not afraid of De Beers at all.

Even the shareholders behind De Beers have nothing to fear.

Nanshan-affiliated companies are no longer something that can be bullied by anyone.

In the future, Anglo American, the company behind De Beers, is expected to have some conflicts with Nanshan Investment.

Cao Yang does not mind everyone fighting a few moves in advance.

...

Pan Jinxing has a strong ability to act.

On the one hand, Nanshan Equipment officially added artificial diamond cultivation equipment to the equipment catalog list on its official website, and on the other hand, it also took the initiative to connect with customers in Zhongyuan Province to promote its own equipment to them.

Of course, what's even more ruthless is that it began to use its influence to promote the modification of the definition of "diamond".

This is obviously in the interests of China, and the relevant departments will naturally not stop it.

Soon, several related departments issued a notice, formally making new regulations on some definitions and requirements related to diamonds.

For example, when selling diamonds in jewelry stores, there is no need to distinguish between artificial diamonds and natural diamonds, just write diamonds directly.

When clearing imports, there is no need to make special notes about natural diamonds.

Even in the import catalog, the catalog of natural diamonds was directly removed, leaving only the word diamond.

If you make unnecessary notes, the customs may not be able to clear your customs at that time.

At the same time, the actions on the American side are also not small.

Although it did not immediately follow the pace of China to make changes, someone has already proposed a motion in this regard.

The latest will be the end of this year, and there is a high probability that the definition of diamonds will be revised.

As a result, De Beers immediately became anxious.

"Sheldon, we can't let this matter develop. China is completely messing around."

As the president of De Beers, Blake is very clear about the adverse effects that China's revision of the relevant content about diamonds will have on the company.

From now on, the luxury of natural diamonds will no longer exist.

Why are so many people willing to spend a lot of money to buy diamond rings?

The main reason is that De Beers' publicity work is very good.

Otherwise, the sales of diamond rings will definitely be cut in half again and again.

But now the difference between artificial diamonds and natural diamonds has been erased, which is very fatal for De Beers, a company that mainly produces natural diamonds.

It can be said that the value of De Beers fell by at least 20% when China announced this policy.

If the United States also announced a similar plan, it would not be surprising that De Beers' value would be cut in half.

After all, diamonds, in addition to their special industrial uses, really rely on publicity to gain a foothold in the jewelry field.

Otherwise, wouldn't it be better for everyone to buy gold rings?

"The policy has been announced, and even if we oppose it, it will have no effect."

"What I am worried about now is that other countries will also follow suit and announce such a regulation, which will be fatal to us."

Although De Beers' profit margin is not low, by then, due to the continuous development of artificial diamonds in recent years, they have actually been affected to some extent.

After all, the cost of digging natural diamonds is still higher than that of artificial cultivation.

But the value difference between the two is constantly shrinking.

"What can you do?"

De Beers is best at publicity.

As the person in charge of publicity and sales, Sheldon is definitely very capable in this area.

So Blake asked him directly.

"On the one hand, we need to change the slogan to let everyone know that natural diamonds are real diamonds."

"I already have some ideas for this slogan, which is: Truth is rare, truth is diamond."

"Artificial diamonds are unreal and worthless; natural diamonds are real; people should stop buying artificial diamonds."

"On the other hand, we can specially produce a synthetic diamond detection device that can quickly detect which diamonds are natural and which are artificial."

It must be said that Sheldon's marketing ability is really very strong.

He found a solution so quickly.

However, Blake was still a little reluctant to give up such a classic De Beers advertisement all of a sudden.

"If this still doesn't work to change the situation of falling diamond prices, what should we do?"

Sheldon unexpectedly didn't think about this question for long, and answered directly: "If this doesn't work, then we need to consider producing artificial diamonds ourselves."

"We can produce both natural and artificial diamonds."

"And our De Beers artificial diamonds must have unique markings and some unique craftsmanship."

"When promoting, we can promote that hand-polished diamonds are more valuable than machine-cut diamonds, etc."

"In short, it's still the same sentence: buy diamonds, buy De Beers."

It has to be said that the response plan proposed by Sheldon is likely to be another classic diamond marketing.

A product that has no value basis in itself, completely relying on the human management of the supply chain and large-scale marketing to support the price, can also maintain a high price for many years.

Whether it is an IQ tax or a scam, from the perspective of advertising, De Beers' diamond marketing is undoubtedly a marketing classic.

This shows that De Beers' marketing strength in this regard is really strong.

"Since you have an idea, let's implement it as soon as possible."

"We can't let shareholders and consumers lose confidence in us!"

Blake finally breathed a sigh of relief.

However, soon, he couldn't laugh anymore.

Because many companies in China began to look for Nanshan Equipment to order the most advanced artificial diamond cultivation equipment.

The original equipment manufacturers in Zhongyuan Province, such as Sanmo Institute, also quickly followed up on the technology.

Although the quality and size of the diamonds cultivated by the equipment they produced were not as good as those of Nanshan Equipment.

But they couldn't resist the large quantity.

For many industrial products such as glass cutting knives, there are no special requirements for the size of diamonds.

As long as the price is cheap enough, it's fine.

So soon, the price of diamonds in the Chinese market began to drop sharply.

It started from the industrial market first, and then quickly spread to the jewelry market.

The goal of bringing the price of artificial diamonds and natural diamonds to the same level will soon be achieved in the Chinese market.

"Mr. Cao, gallium nitride components can improve the power and sensitivity of radars, but temperature control may be a thorny issue."

"According to the ideas you provided, in order to solve the overheating problem, we are combining artificial diamonds with military transistors and circuits, so that the extremely high thermal conductivity of diamonds can be fully utilized."

At Venustech, Zhao Siyu took Cao Yang to visit the latest products in the laboratory.

It will take time to mass-produce large-scale radars, but it can be achieved relatively quickly to verify the impact of combining diamonds with gallium nitride power components.

"If we can alleviate the overheating problem of radar components, we can increase the amplifier and increase the detection range of the radar."

"If the project is successful in the end, the detection range of the radar may increase by 2 to 3 times."

Diamond has excellent thermal conductivity, and its thermal conductivity far exceeds that of materials such as metal aluminum, silver and copper.

Since diamonds can dissipate heat quickly, using diamonds in radar power devices can improve the overall heat dissipation performance, thereby reducing the cost of heat dissipation.

In addition, diamonds also have extremely high insulation properties, which is particularly critical for solving the cooling problem faced in radar power enhancement.

Based on this information, Cao Yang's latest R&D task for Venusstar Technology is definitely a project worth looking forward to.