I am back from a fantastic summer holiday. After landing early on a still dark but clammy Sunday morning, I retrieved my dusty and dirty jalopy from the airport's huge long-term parking lot, paid the  astronomical parking fee and drove 40 minutes to a kind friend's house, who, keeping his growling dog at bay, let me in to catch up on some much needed sleep.

Since I live out in the sticks, the next morning I planned a shopping trip in the big city before heading home, 80 kilometers farther south. After a relatively long absence, my fridge was nearly empty, the car needed washing, the bank urgently wanted a signature, I needed toner for my printer and some other office supplies, and I wanted to buy picture frames for the two beautiful watercolors I had bought on vacation.

Luckily, IKEA was on my route. It has a good choice of picture frames - nothing fancy, but neat, white-washed or natural wood-color frames.

IKEA, really?

Yes, of course!

I am a normal person. Everybody goes to IKEA.  

No matter if you are in Madrid, Brussels, Eindhoven, Zwijndrecht (both in the Netherlands) or Be'er Sheva, no matter where you are, you'll find your way.

Every IKEA sports the same look, the same blue corrugated metal sheet covered buildings, the IKEA towers/beacons to home on into, and once inside, the same layout everywhere. IKEA branches are open late, often until 11 p.m.. Because of all the above, IKEA is a low threshold store.

However, while it is easy to get in. it is not so easy to get out. Even an "IKEA pro" like me often needs to think very carefully to plan the shortest route and use the existing, but cleverly hidden shortcuts that exist on both floors of the stores.

My visit to IKEA got me thinking, especially after, once back at my desk, I read two news items.  One was about IKEA's expansion in the Chinese market, where it will invest $1.4 billion in the next fiscal year.

The other item was about the American mass-market retailer Target.

This article reported that Target Corp. had passed two big store milestones. "The discounter recently cut the ribbon on its 100th small-format store, and also surpassed its 500th store remodel. And it's not done yet: Target said it's on track to remodel 1,000 stores by the end of 2020." All this is part of Target's $7 billion investment plan that the chain announced in 2017.

IKEA's revenue in 2018 was about $48 billion; Target's is about $25 billion. They are sizable companies that both spend enormous efforts and funds to expand, innovate and re-invent themselves.

Walking around IKEA and observing the almost captive audience negotiating its way through the store, some with baby strollers, others with canes and walkers, from the entrance to the cashiers, I couldn't help think about our diamond industry and its inability - and I often think unwillingness - to invest, innovate and re-invent itself to present an attractive, desirable product to the end-consumer and to tell a good story to go with it.

How much investment in marketing is enough in an industry like ours? Is the current $70 million coughed up by the producers for the Diamond Producers Association's (DPA) efforts enough?  Personally, I doubt we will see any results of the DPA's activities translated into larger diamond and diamond jewelry sales this holiday season.

In June, at his annual breakfast conference at JCK, Martin Rapaport suggested that the industry at large should invest at least a billion dollars annually in promoting diamond among consumers.

To me, that sounds more like it.

Then all we will need is for a real A-team to make a plan that will work.