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Perceptive obsolescence is a strategy that makes you consume more

Andreas H. image by Pixabay

Perceptual obsolescence (or perceived obsolescence) occurs when a product or service, which works perfectly, is considered obsolete due to the appearance of a new version, with a different style or with some alteration in its assembly line. Also called psychological obsolescence or desirability, it is a marketing and design phenomenon used to stimulate consumption.

The society we live in is characterized by rapid and frequent changes - cultural, economic and social. And we, human beings of the 21st century, also feel these transformations and modify our behavior as new products and/or services emerge. This reflects on our needs, making them ever-changing. In the context of the consumer society, we can consider that we build our identity, mainly, from the contact with other individuals, with the environment, with information, with the media and with the objects of consumption.

• What is conscious consumption?

Technological advances also stimulate this new organization of society, centered on the emergence and creation of new desires and needs. Thus, production and consumption are governed by 'the law of obsolescence, seduction and diversification', dictating that the new will always be superior to the old, thus accelerating the disuse and premature disposal of consumed products. Shopping has become an act of creation, identity, identification, expression and communication.

However, added to this, we are experiencing a period of intense population growth. According to the United Nations Population Fund - UNFPA, the planet currently has more than seven billion people and the forecast is that the world population will surpass nine billion inhabitants in the middle of this century.

Thus, the accelerated demand for products and services to serve us is a problem to be faced. The strong government incentive for companies to increase production and competitiveness promotes an ever greater stimulus to consumption, which reveals some of the psychology of waste that dominates contemporary industrial culture. As a result, we have an imbalance caused by the accelerated extraction of raw materials, increasing the use of water and electricity, in addition to pollution. This imbalance is correlated with the great demand generated by population growth and urbanization on the planet.

From this circumstance emerges the concept of obsolescence of products and services. The term obsolescence means becoming obsolete. Process or state of what is in the process of becoming outdated or that has lost its usefulness and, therefore, has fallen into disuse.

Obsolescence is defined through the application of techniques used to artificially limit the durability of products and services with the sole purpose of encouraging repetitive consumption. It arose as a result of pressures to expand production and consumption in the US society to increase the economy. In a short time, obsolescence revealed one of the most serious environmental impacts to be faced: the management of waste resulting from the process of unrestrained consumption.

The video below, produced by the team at eCycle portal , explains the main types of obsolescence existing in society:

What is perceptual obsolescence?

Perceptual obsolescence, or perceived obsolescence, is referred to by some researchers as the premature devaluation of a product or service from an emotional point of view. The strategy is widely used by companies with the main objective of increasing their sales.

The psychological devaluation of products results, for users, in the feeling that the product they own has become outdated, making the object less desirable, although it still works - often in perfect condition.

In other words, marketing mechanisms are adopted to change the style of products as a way to induce consumers to go shopping repeatedly. It's about spending the product on people's minds. In this way, consumers are led to associate the new with the best and the old with the worst. The style and appearance of the goods become all-important elements and it is the design that brings the illusion of change through creating a style. Thus, perceived obsolescence, in many cases, makes consumers feel uncomfortable when using a product that they believe has become outdated.

This strategy can also be called psychological obsolescence, since it is totally related to the wishes and desires of the consumer.

The strategy of perceptual obsolescence can be considered a subdivision of planned obsolescence (read more in "What is planned obsolescence?"). The big difference between the two strategies is that planned obsolescence makes a product obsolete by shortening its useful life, causing it to lose functionality, and perceptual obsolescence makes a product obsolete in the eyes of the consumer, no longer being noticed as a style trend, yet it's perfectly functional.

How did this concept come about?

The concept of obsolescence addresses some typical elements of the market economy, such as maximizing production, manufacturing medium quality products and an accelerated depreciation cycle, rapid exchange of goods, and the consequent increase in demand for new products.

Design plays a big role in this context. It is a fundamental tool for the performance of perceptual obsolescence in the consumer scenario, being involved in various stages of a consumer good, from the initial project, planning, branding even advertising marketing. It is design, together with advertising, which has managed, over the years, to awaken people's unbridled desire for consumption based on a business strategy. This practice results in conditioning a large portion of the population to believe that the possession of material goods gives access to happiness.

In 1919, the first industrial design school in the world, the Bauhaus, was opened in Germany. Since its inception, the Bauhaus has already foreseen an approximation with the industry, incorporating the aesthetics of the machine and using it to its advantage. The objective was to satisfy social demands by proposing a standardization that took into account the needs of mass production, since industrialization was an irreversible process. According to some researchers, the idea of ​​thinking design as a unified and global activity can be considered one of the greatest contributions of the Bauhaus today.

Until then, during product development, consumer tastes were not taken into account. From 1920 onwards, several entrepreneurs started to use the strategy of programmed and perceptive obsolescence. The automobile industries started to adopt and invest in marketing strategies, until then used only in the textile and fashion industries.

Thus, companies began to use the styling to make your products more desirable and stimulate sales. O styling appeared in the United States after the stock market crash in 1929, and can be considered a design philosophy with the intention of accelerating sales by making a product more attractive to the consumer.

Hannah Morgan image in Unsplash

The greatest example, at this time, occurred in the automobile market, in which the styling it arose from the relationship between the demand for low prices (which required greater standardization in the large-scale production of automobiles) and the aesthetic appeal and demand for novelties (to maintain consumer interest). This strategy was so successful that it was soon adopted by other branches of US industry.

The 1930s were also marked by the redesign of products and the application of new synthetic materials, such as bakelite, a phenol-formaldehyde resin, considered to be the first fully synthetic plastic (polymer) that could be transformed into objects of various uses.

Josh Rinard image in Unsplash

In addition, at that time, the use of the streamline in automobiles in the United States, highlighting the future of these machines. This practice transgressed the aesthetic standard of the moment, bringing a design with rounded lines as if they were polished by the wind. In cars, the aerodynamic shape, in addition to aesthetics, is functional, as it improves the vehicle's stability at high speeds, while also providing savings in fuel consumption.

The movement streamline it became a trend that would be seen within 1930s homes in the US as well. O streamline it became the symbol of modernity, progress and hope. Designers understood that their job was to transform products into “irresistible”, motivating consumers to buy and projecting their desires and hopes onto the objects.

At that time, the US economy was becoming extremely dependent on unbridled consumption as a way to generate wealth, which became known as The American Way of Life, or, in Portuguese, The American Lifestyle, whose greatest impact can be seen through the philosophy of waste generated.

In 1940 the concept of 'Good Design' emerged as a form of reaction to styling. This movement sought the development of durable, practical and functional products that still possess aesthetic quality and coherent value. However, in 1960, planned and perceptive obsolescence became strategies interpreted as positive, especially for young people, becoming a common practice used by industries. During this period 'Pop Design' emerged, rejecting the obsession for functionality and durability, exalted by 'Good Design', declaring that design should be ephemeral and fun, thus creating a design with a disposable aesthetic.

At the end of the 1960s, new criticisms of this strategy began to emerge, and designers began to question themselves again about their role in society. The concept of 'Good Design' returns as a form of reaction, being again linked to durability. However, in this same period, post-modern design also developed, which rejected the emphasis solely on the functionality and durability of products.

Finally, according to postmoderns, products should not be produced only as machines, to fulfill a function, but also carry meaning, as people did not use a product only as a tool, but also as an icon that represents their lifestyle and social class.

According to some studies, the popularization of the idea of ​​perceptual obsolescence was attributed to Brooks Stevens, a famous American automobile designer, from the 1960s. to buy over the course of a year, and the following year the entrepreneurs would introduce new products that would make those previously purchased outdated. Although some individuals were opposed to the strategy, concerned with ethics, others recognized it as a legitimate way to guarantee markets and thus the reduction of the product life cycle has become recurrent in the business universe until today.

Perceptual obsolescence in the context of contemporary consumption

Gilles Lambert image in Unsplash

As previously reported, because it is the will of the consumer, perceptual obsolescence receives essential help from advertising, due to its high influence on tastes and style trends. Advertising and the media then act as trend setters, boosting design projects by enabling a significant exposure and presence in the imagination of consumers.

Through advertising, brands manage to conquer their space in the imagination of the consumer who, then stimulated, starts to develop desires and expectations for the brands' future products. As a result, exchanges and renewals become, in addition to a marketing strategy, a consumer demand.

A good example of this phenomenon, in the cell phone scenario, was the launch of the iPhone 4, in 2010. The expectation for this device was so high that it received 600 thousand pre-sale orders on the first day of the announcement, resulting in us first three days of sale, in 1.7 million units sold.

Added to this, considering some experts' ideas about individual identity, perceptual obsolescence is aided by the desire to update the individual's identity. Consumers build their own identity through their proper manifestations, which, in many cases, are expressed in consumption.

The need to update the consumer's identity and the strategy of perceptual obsolescence act mutually. On the one hand, consumer identity is constantly being updated thanks to changing style trends created by perceptual obsolescence; on the other hand, perceptual obsolescence finds in this demand a fundamental part for its functioning.

Thus, in their search for satisfaction, consumers need to keep up to date with what the market makes available to them. The development of new products and consumer demand grow together, establishing perceptual obsolescence as a marketing strategy in the contemporary scenario.

waste generation

The accelerated demand for new products, accompanied by the premature disposal of products that are still in operation, lead to an exacerbated generation of waste, centered on waste.

For example: in 2009 alone, more than 200 million televisions, 110 million digital cameras and eight million GPS units were sold worldwide. Considering only the Apple brand, 20 million iPods were sold, which will quickly become electronic waste.

In Brazil, consumption rates are also on the rise. Surveys indicate that, during the second quarter of 2008 and 2009, the growth was 3.2% in the consumption of goods by Brazilian families. It is even possible to notice an increase in the acquisition of durable goods among families considered to have low income, also verifying a significant increase in the generation of household waste per capita in relation to the number of inhabitants. This increase, also related to the changes in our habits, resulting from the new current production and consumption models. Times of economic crisis, however, tend to reduce the numbers.

In August 2010, Federal Law No. 12,305 was approved in Brazil, referring to the National Policy on Solid Waste (PNRS), which mainly obliges companies (but also gives responsibilities to the final consumer and the government) to provide an adequate destination for the waste, including electronic waste, so as not to contaminate the environment.

Currently, electronic waste is growing three times more than conventional waste and, according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the situation can be considered more worrying in emerging countries, especially in Brazil, where the generation of electronic waste discarded by each Brazilian reaches 0.5 kg per inhabitant.

Importantly, the production of green technologies or recycling programs does not completely solve this range of problems. It is urgent to review the economic growth model that rests on the pillars of perceptive obsolescence.

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