World Gold Council Launches $3 Million National Ad Campaign in U.S.; First Gold Jewelry Ad Push in Almost Five Years.

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 8, 2000

The World Gold Council has launched a major fall advertising campaign designed to capture the attention of American fashion and jewelry conscious women.

In launching the new campaign -- Gold Fashioned Girls -- the Council has again taken the lead in an aggressive multi-faceted gold jewelry promotion in the U.S. following a nearly five-year hiatus.

"The Council has returned, in every sense, to the type of high impact gold jewelry advertising which had considerable success through the early 1990's," said Michael Barlerin, the WGC's Corporate Director, International Communications. The new co-op advertisements, which extol the virtues of 18 karat gold, have the support of AngloGold -- the world's largest gold producing company -- together with designers Robert Lee Morris, Chimento, Roberto Coin and Tissot Watch. Multi-page 4-color sections will run in 12 upscale national magazines. The program is being further supported by an extensive trade campaign telling the industry that "yellow gold is definitely back."

In commenting on the U.S. industry program, Haruko Fukuda, CEO of the WGC said that, "There is growing agreement within the gold mining community on the need to increase collective marketing efforts and to acknowledge the importance of gold jewelry demand to the long term health of the industry. Our new U.S. advertising initiative, together with the rest of the WGC's international promotional efforts, will help drive global demand for gold jewelry and ensure that it remains highly relevant to the consumers of the future."

According to the Council and its partners, the timing of the program could not have been better. "The U.S. economy is strong and gold is definitely this year's fashion news. The Council and we were convinced of the need to act immediately and decisively," said Kelvin Williams, Executive Director, Marketing of AngloGold Limited. "We were especially committed, too, to launch the campaign in the quarter that accounts for over 40% of retail sales in the U.S.," said Williams.

"The U.S. is the world's largest gold jewelry adornment market and a critical market for gold -- particularly 18 karat yellow gold. Also America has enormous influence on worldwide fashion trends. It makes excellent business sense to promote gold in a country where $14.7 billion was spent last year on gold jewelry and in so doing, encourage greater gold consumption around the world," said Williams.

The U.S. advertising campaign follows hard on the heels of The Gold Virtuosi Awards -- the `Oscars' of the jewelry world -- which was co-sponsored by the World Gold Council, AngloGold and the Vicenza Fair Trade Board. Gold Virtuosi, the first global award for excellence in gold jewelry design resulted in over 3,000 sketches from 34 countries from which 30 winners were chosen.

For the next year, the World Gold Council will be touring the 30 winning gold jewelry creations in international markets including Paris, London, Hong Kong, Johannesburg and Dubai.

The World Gold Council is an international organization formed and funded by leading gold mining companies from around the world to stimulate demand for gold.