Mary Frances Gerety

Mary Frances Gerety (1916-1999) was the copywriter responsible for the "A Diamond is Forever" slogan created for De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd. This famous slogan is still used today in advertising pertaining to diamonds.

Personal life Mary Frances Gerety, who primarily went by "Frances," was born in 1916 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She graduated from Charles Morris Price School of Advertising and Journalism and was later a student at the University of Pennsylvania. Gerety lived alone in Wayne, Pennsylvania for most of her life and died in Derby, Pennsylvania at the age of 83 on April 11, 1999 .

N. W. Ayers Frances Gerety began working at the N. W. Ayer & Son advertising agency as a copywriter in 1943 and continued until 1970.

"A Diamond is Forever" Due to the decline of diamond sales after the Great Depression, the diamond company De Beers was desperate to increase marketing strategies. De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd. hired N.W. Ayers & Son to advertise their diamonds in 1938. Since women in advertising were generally assigned to cases that only pertained to women, Gerety was the prime copywriter for the job. Advertising Age named “A Diamond is Forever” the slogan of the 20th century in 1999.

Fiction Gerety was portrayed in a fictional novel The Engagements by J. Courtney Sullivan.