• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, May 3, 2024

Pandora, the Danish jewelry giant best known for add-a-charm bracelets, is basking in the success of recent marketing shifts. Thanks to its “Be Love” campaign, which focuses on the brand’s large selection of demi-fine jewelry, sales soared 18% in its just-completed first quarter to about $977 million U.S. dollars.

On a comparable store basis, revenues rose 11%. And with a 9% gain in U.S. sales, its largest market, the mall-based retailer continued to add market share in the U.S.

The latest effort is the second step in the company’s Phoenix strategy, which included increased advertising investment that “showcased Pandora’s position as a full jewelry brand,” the company announced.

Based on that momentum, the company also increased its forecast for the coming quarter, anticipating between 8% and 10% sales gains, even as the broader jewelry market struggles.

Profits at the company, the largest jewelry brand in the world, reached record levels.

“Whilst jewelry markets around us generally remain subdued,” says Alexander Lacik, president and chief executive officer, in its announcement, “our ongoing brand investments allow us to take market share.”

Industrywide, Tenoris, a market research company, reports that the U.S. jewelry market dropped 5.8% in 2023. And in December – a month that often rescues the category – dollar sales at U.S. specialty jewelers gained just 0.1%, as unit sales dipped 2.3%.

The company introduced the “Be Love” campaign as part of multiple efforts to expand its reach, including opening more stores.

Sales of core offerings, including the sale of the charms the company is best known for that still comprise the majority of sales, grew 3%. New collections performed much better. “Fuel” gained 34%, “Timeless” advanced by 43%, and revenues for lab-grown diamonds skyrocketed 87%.

Last year, the company launched three new collections of those lab-grown sparklers as part of its “Diamonds for All” effort. Ads for those collections featured such celebrities as a clean-scrubbed Pamela Anderson, Vogue style icon Grace Coddington and musician/dancer Vinson Fraley.