Breaking Our Love Affair With the New

“There is a new breed of consumers interested in refurbished and refreshed goods. This trend is not purely driven by value, but by a desire to protect the environment.” Marketing Week – Lucy Richardson. In July, the electrical and electronic industry will become responsible for the cost of collection, treatment and recycling of their equipment. We are likely to see this spread to other sectors where future legislation will likely include recycling and sustainable design within its jurisdiction. Therefore, in the not so distant future, brands will begin substituting non-recyclable ingredients for more suitable elements, overhauling their supply chain to deliver more recyclable items and generally extending their product lifecycles to meet these needs. It’s a huge undertaking so perhaps we will see industry collaboration to create recyclable raw materials or even joint manufacturing plants. This in turn presents a huge marketing opportunity to break our love affair with the new. Provided vendors and distributors can offer refurbished products with a significant warranty period, the opportunities are limitless. Examples: 1. eBay (with its 200 million users worldwide) reflects the growth of the recycled goods market. EBay sells one car and one laptop every two minutes, while an item of women’s clothing sells every seven seconds. 2. Used car showrooms are popping up everywhere. 3. Reconditioned, household appliances like fridges, are now available alongside newer models, neatly accepting responsibility for recycling as well as answering a consumer demand. 4. High street furniture and clothing stores offer a similar service by refurbishing or even redesigning items to be exchanged or resold. 5. Freecycle, a grassroots, not-for-profit movement swaps goods within communities. 6. Online services such as Cahooting and People’s Web enable consumers to rent or borrow items from one another. 7. There is a rapidly growing 3 billion dollar market for used Cisco hardware. There is an opportunity to design products and brands to be kept rather than replaced. In technology, we need to break the “upgrade culture”, which sees phones and PCs replaced frequently. The same is true in fashion, where the likes of Primark and supermarket chains have spawned a culture of fast, throw-away fashion. Instead, marketers should consider product innovation with a “Design for Life” approach to extend your product lifecycle. Could your product evolve to become something else of value? Could your products be made more durable to last longer with built-in repair/servicing programs? On an emotional level, marketers need to find ways of creating emotional connections with objects so we keep them for longer. Walter Stahel, visiting Professor of the University of Surrey calls this the “teddy bear factor”: no matter how worn out, you don’t throw your teddy bear out as it is an emotional link to childhood. The “Ikea-isation” of the home furnishings sector means that we no longer hand down treasured pieces of furniture to our children. Reuse…Save up to 90% off list price and save the environment too when you shop at UsedCisco.com Taken from Marketing Week