1.5c. So, that’s the end of that story. 💩
Climate change is one of the biggest stories in recent history. It seems the hopeful story we told ourselves has ended.
A bad ending.
A business account I use auto renewals 30 days before the service period starts. They have now locked me in until 2025. As a consumer I feel super trapped. Let’s look at this as an ending.
Bad medical product endings
Of all the sectors in consumerism where you want reliability, few are more critical than the medical sector. Here the consumer experience needs to be solid, reliable and of course, if its going to end, it better be planned. Surprisingly even here the end is not as thought through as you might think.
The American approach to consumerism. How its aged over 100 years.
It is nearly one hundred years since the pioneering home economist, author and consumer champion Christine Frederick defined the American Consumer approach. How have these ambitions aged in a world of too many products and a heating planet.
Over consumption to over donation
Over consumption to over donation: How Dan Browns Da Vinci Code reveals a global problem of giving away the crap in your wardrobe.
The privilege of defining waste.
As the consumer and provider relationship breaks apart at the end, so does the support and instruction the consumer receives from that relationship. This leaves defining waste to be done alone, uninstructed. Therefore leaving disposability wide open to interpretation. If we consider the decision tree along the consumer lifecycle we can see emotions and purpose change from desired object and functional product, to unwanted burden. Where the consumer is encouraged at earlier stages to think individually and selfishly. At later stages they are asked to think altruistically and regard ongoing value. Clearly conflicting behaviours.
Back in the box experience
For years brand and product people have been talking about out of the box experience – or in layperson terms how the customer first engages with a product. In the early 2000’s consumers and industry would swoon over the latest out of the box experience from leading businesses.
We now need to be better than just starting experiences well. We need to end those same products with off-boarding experiences.
Degrowth: shifting purpose and employees to a better end.
As climate change becomes more real everyday we need to ask harder questions on the norms of our lifestyles. Many people are starting to see the need for degrowth, but business leaders are questioning how they do that and still add value to their consumer product experience. How do we refocus all those businesses to do better and grow less? It’s a big ask.
Bias Benevolence
Charity is said to begin at home, but it might be more accurate to say that it begins with a sale. It’s often at the point of purchase that a consumer finds it easiest to behave benevolently. Can we say the same about the end? Do we care as much about who dismantles our electronics, processes our waste, or recycles our plastic? Or do we find our charities surrendered to a consumption cycle like everything else.
