Ceylon Sapphires glitter with the Royal Wedding

Ceylon Sapphires are under increased spotlight in the frenzied run up especially in UK to the royal wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton tomorrow.

The most important symbol of this wedding is the beautiful engagement ring that sits on Kate Middleton’s finger which is intrinsically linked to Sri Lanka.

This symbolic ring has set off a chain of events that has culminated in this highly anticipated royal wedding.

The Ceylon Sapphire, which is the central focus of her engagement ring, is one of Sri Lanka’s prized gem treasures. It is, however, a sentimental treasure to all the citizens of the United Kingdom, as this ring belonged to and was chosen by the ever iconic, late Princess Diana. For Prince William, this ring has enormous significance. “It’s my mother’s engagement ring, so of course it’s very special to me. This was my way of making sure that my mother didn’t miss out on today,” he said as the couple posed for photographers inside St James’s Palace.

The EDB having identified the Gem and Jewellery sector as a thrust industry to reach an export target of USD 1 billion by the year 2015, saw the opportunity for the gem industry to raise the profile of the Ceylon Sapphire on the back of the royal wedding.

In pursuance of this the EDB in association with the Sri Lanka Gem and Jewellery Association (SLGJA) wanted to highlight the royal family’s deep and longstanding connection to the Ceylon Sapphire over many generations, dating back to Henry V.

In February 2011, the SLGJA had approached Grant McCann to create a campaign that would highlight the Ceylon Sapphire brand in key markets, most significantly in the UK.  After many weeks of researching the Ceylon Sapphire and its role in history, locally and internationally, the Agency was amazed to trace it back to 500 BC. Some patrons of the Ceylon Sapphire were King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.

The result was the launching of an innovative and informative website. The target was 250 UK and international media that are covering the royal wedding, featuring the areas of news, fashion, culture and lifestyle. Given the information influx to media covering the royal wedding, Grant McCann came up with an innovate ‘press gift’ to get the attention of key journalists, sending them a unique silver gem studded teaspoon with a URL engraved into the handle ‘www.ceylonsapphire.co.uk’.

The purpose of the ‘gem spoon’ was to drive key media to the campaign microsite where journalists could learn about the Ceylon Sapphire on Kate’s ring and the origins of the Ceylon Sapphire in history and its connection to royalty for thousands of years.  The site is updated daily with all the latest royal wedding news in order to keep the website fresh and relevant to the media, and the secondary target market, which are all the royal wedding enthusiastic consumers.  In addition to the international media to reach the secondary target audience, consumers in the AB Class that was defined by the SLGJA, Grant McCann created a ground breaking digital media plan utilising Vogue, GQ, Glamour and social media, including Facebook.

EDB Chairman Janaka Ratnayake said: “Thirty years ago when Princess Diana got engaged to Prince Charles and she personally picked a beautiful Ceylon Sapphire from Sri Lanka as her gem of choice, we did not take advantage of the opportunity then to create awareness of our gem industry. Today that ring has become the most globally famous ring of all time and is considered priceless, reinforcing our belief that Ceylon Sapphires today are extremely valuable and rarer than diamonds.”

“This unique campaign by the EDB and the SLGJA reinforces the unmatched superiority of the Sri Lankan gem mining industry globally and the richness of our history going back hundreds of years with the association of precious stones. The dedicated website will also allow enthusiasts across the globe the opportunity to learn about the distinct features and aristocratic history of the Ceylon Sapphire,” Ratnayake added.

SLGJA Chairman Macky Hashim said: “This is the first time that SLGJA have embarked on an international campaign of this nature to raise awareness about the rarity and value of the Ceylon Sapphire. We are very grateful to the Export Development Board for supporting us in this unique campaign that has been created to attract attention for Sri Lanka and the Gem and Jewellery industry.”

The second stage of the campaign was the creation of a replica Ceylon Sapphire and diamond hair pin, which was gifted on the behalf of the Sri Lanka Gem and Jewellery Association, as a gift to Kate Middleton to wear on her wedding day. The purpose of this extremely valuable, Ceylon Sapphire hair pin surrounded by diamonds was to act as Kate’s ‘something blue’ in the tradition of most weddings where the Bride must wear ‘something new, something old, something borrowed and something blue’. The hair pin was being delivered to Kate Middleton’s family home in Berkshire this week.  The story was fed into the press, getting coverage on popular wedding blogs.

The ring itself, crafted by the Crown Jewellers - Asprey & Garrard of London, at the time was valued at £28,500, it is now estimated to be worth a whopping £32 million; in short it is priceless. The piece is an oval cut, 12-carat Ceylon Sapphire — of a particularly vivid shade of Cornflower Blue. The stone is set among several diamonds on a slender gold band and is the core of the romance between the two princes — Charles and William with the latter about to start a fresh round of media frenzy worldwide.  

Some of the other famous sapphires, including the Logan Sapphire, and the Asprey & Garrard designed “Heart of the Ocean” Sapphire, are from the mines of Sri Lanka. With the announcement of the royal wedding, jewellers have been overwhelmed with orders for replica rings, with some retailers reporting an increase in sales of 800% for Ceylon Sapphires.

The royal wedding of Prince William, and his future bride-to-be Kate Middleton is set to attract a television audience of over two billion viewers globally, the largest television audience in history. A further 4 million people are estimated to be following the wedding online and on radio, above and beyond the 800,000 observers that will be outside Buckingham Palace watching the event live. These observers will be participating in the wedding using any form of social media available to them on their mobile phones.