We love to use wedding imagery when discussing corporate mergers, because it’s a useful metaphor: months of preparation and due diligence lead to a joyous union and (we hope) decades of happiness as life partners. In the case of the acquisition of Zale Corp. by Signet Jewelers Ltd., the comparison is just poor writing, since all companies involved are mall jewelry stores, where Americans buy their wedding bling. [More]
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Cue Cutesy Commercials: Owner of Jared, Kay Jewelers Buys Owner of Zales In $1.4B Deal
By 2.19.14
You can never have enough diamonds. If you’re Signet Jewelers that’s an accurate statement. The parent company of Kay Jewelers and Jared the Galleria of Jewelry is adding to its inventory by purchasing Zale Corporation, the parent company of jewelry store Zales. [More]
Consumerist Presents The 19 Worst Ads Of 2013, Brought To You By Consumerist
By 12.31.13
While we all have that one friend who is constantly littering our Facebook timelines with YouTube links to “Hilarius!” [sic] commercials, most of us hate advertisements. Even the ones that are funny or interesting the first time you see them will inevitably begin to grate after you see it for the 10th time in an hour. But some ads never even earn that initial chuckle, and instead go right to pushing that nerve that makes you want to body-slam your beloved 55″ TV. [More]
Guaranteed Christmas Delivery At Zales Leads To Panicked Boyfriend
By 12.23.11
Maybe Derek shouldn’t have waited until last week to order a bracelet for his girlfriend as a Christmas gift, or maybe he should have gone to a brick-and-mortar Zales store to buy it. But he didn’t, and their site guaranteed delivery by Christmas if he ordered at that point. It turns out that “guaranteed Christmas delivery” actually means “we might get around to shipping it by the 22nd.” [More]
Zales Fires Top Earning Saleswoman Because She Needs Surgery
By 4.10.09
A saleswoman for Zales who had earned 5 diamonds and almost a dozen commendations over the past 4 1/2 years—she’s the area’s first employee to earn a million dollars in sales in one year—was terminated last month, one week after she requested time off to have surgery for a life-threatening aortic aneurysm.
Zales Store Receipts Really Don't Mean Anything
By 6.27.08
Reader Taylor had purchased wedding rings from Zales with a payment plan that allows him to make payments over the course of a year. One day, Taylor went to the store to make a payment of $160 and received his receipt for the cash transaction. A few days later, he received a call from the store manager who said that she believed that Taylor had only paid $60 and cited a surveillance video which, according to the manager, shows their sales representative counting only 3 bills. Even though Taylor was certain that he paid $160 and has a receipt to prove it, he asked to see this intriguing video, but the store manager has been giving him the run-around ever since. Taylor’s letter and our advice, inside…
Pith & Vinegar: The Spinning of the Chum
By 6.1.06
• Old news but we didn’t talk about it yet: Telcos secretly funding anti-net-neutrality websites. Probably made by the same ad agency who did the pro-C02 spot. [Digg]
