There are many ways in which to sell your products; some, such as beds, cutlery, lightbulbs, are considered necessities and will always be marketable. Others are more luxurious and not available to everyone; new cars, an iPad, a high-end makeup brand and require a certain level of advertisement. But there is another way to get consumers to buy into your products: enact a change that forces their hand.
Engagement rings are an excellent example of this. In the 1930s, the De Beers diamond corporation realised that diamonds were only bought by the very wealthy, with most considering diamonds an unnecessary luxury. To combat this, they rolled out on of the most successful advertising campaigns of all time. It stated that, firstly, for a proposal to even be considered, a man must buy a woman a diamond engagement ring. Second, this ring must cost at least 2 months salary. This campaign was so effective, that this rule is still commonly applied in the US and diamond engagement rings are now considered the norm the whole world over. To add insult to injury, diamonds are effectively worthless - De Beers has a global monopoly on the supply the world’s mines produce and is able to artificially restrict supply to raise their prices. In this way, De Beers was able to indoctrinate people to part with their hard-earned cash to purchase worthless product, rather than on something useful.
Planned obsolesce is another example of this phenomena. It’s been a hot topic in recent years and rightly so. It is the practise of purposely designing products to fail after a certain time, forcing customers to prematurely upgrade, thus spending more money. Apple have been especially scrutinised for this practise by slowing down their older models through updates, but this issue is present in many other designs such as lightbulbs, washing machines and cars. Often, these products that deliberately fail after a short time will be sold at a cheaper price than those that last longer, thereby ensuring that those with less money to spend are restricted to shoddier products. Thus, a vicious cycle is created of people buying poorer quality products, then having to spend even more money later replacing them. Not to mention the huge environmental impact of consistently throwing out old electronic goods. A luxury goods market has also now emerged from this, with consumers paying a premium for high-quality, durable goods.
Many of the decisions consumers make when buying a new product aren’t actually their own at all; companies and manufacturers have already decided exactly how they’ll spend their money. We need to hold these companies accountable for perpetuating poor consumer practises that harm and exploit everyone, especially those with less money to spend, and contribute further to mass environmental damage.
Morven
Sites and references:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160612-heres-the-truth-about-the-planned-obsolescence-of-tech
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