Signet, parent company of jewelry retailer Jared the Galleria of Jewelry, recently announced that it will be dropping the well-known tagline it has used in its advertising campaigns for more than a decade. “He Went to Jared” is being replaced with the new tagline “Dare to Be Devoted”.

McKinney, the advertising firm that worked with Jared on the campaign (watch the commercials here), “created something that celebrates devotion in all its forms”. I admire the new tagline and think it enables Jared to emphasize the emotional element of buying and gifting jewelry without trapping themselves in a tiny ring box.

These new TV, radio, and online components are a reminder of how important it is for a jewelry brand to knows its customers – without assuming too much about their behavior. In fact, the new campaign invites customers to surprise the brand and dream up new, personalized ways to work the Jared into the story of their lives.

How well do you know your customers? What inspires, motivates, and moves them? What are their values, and what’s most important to them? As a jewelry designer or retailer, you probably at the very least have a vision of your target customers in your head. You’ve probably interacted with them in person or via phone or email, if you only operate an e-commerce store.

When we start working with a new client, one of the first things we do is create at least three Customer Personas, especially if we can’t immediately tell from looking at the client’s website and social media profiles who the target customer is supposed to be. Chances are, the target isn’t clear and needs to be defined.

For each Customer Persona, we exercise our imagination and create a lively three-dimensional Customer, like a character in your favorite book. We push far beyond demographics and write a narrative about the customer’s typical day, the customer’s online behavior, the customer’s influences, the customer’s shopping frustrations, and more. We want to know more than age, income, location, etc. – we want a complete picture of a beautifully imperfect human being.

Maybe the customer you used to serve five or 10 years ago isn’t the same customer today you serve – and won’t be your same customer in the future. You must continue to revisit your Customer Personas, so you can continue keeping the customer first and understanding the customer’s real needs and desires.

By launching this ad campaign, Jared is demonstrating at the very least an awareness that their customers no longer fit the traditional jewelry buying and gifting roles that may once have applied decades ago. While it’s clear they have defined their target customers, they also seem open to letting their customers surprise them. For jewelry brands, that moment of surprise can inspire innovation and ensure longevity.

What are you currently doing to better understand your customers and what they want?