Citizen or Consumer?
Is consumer confidence high? Consumer spending has weakend this month which may mean interest rates are held steady....
We have all heard these types of phrases. He is another...
"The taxpayer is burdened with...."
There is a great insight into how an organisation views people by the way that organisation describes people. You would never hear a government describe it's taxpayers as consumers. No way, because to the government they are taxpayers - this is their primary purpose.
Likewise to businesses we are all consumers. We need to "consume" their goods and services in order for them to make a profit and have a continious cash flow. But this attitude is very insidious - it is what leads to the convenience throw away society we have in the western world - the consumer society.
But we used to be customers. Often smaller , "mom and pop" family businesses still refer to their customers. This is evocative of local shops providing goods and services in the heart of their community, of which the business owners are part. When things are supplied this way there is an expectancy of an after sales service, repair and problem solving. The customer is more than a cash cow that can be continually milked because that person is the shop owners neighbour. Or father of their son's best friend.
The shift in the attitude comes when the business grows. Those on the board no longer meet their customers face to face. They start making more abstract "marketing" decisions and see the results as statistical charts. The customer is replaced by a "customer base" that behaves as a mass and can be controlled to a degree by mass marketing and other techniques.
Studies are made and "focus groups" consulted to make decisions. Yes, it is more convienient for the customer to lift a flat pack of five slices of ham from a cool cabinet than to wait at the deli counter for an member of staff to slice the ham, fresh. Yes this is much quicker and more convienient for the consumer.
But did they ever find out what the consumers choice would be if the deli counter was not woefully understaffed and it was quick and easy to get the fresh ham? No they did not, because consumers don't have that kind of discrimination. Pile 'em high and the fools will buy any old shit, and in a way this is most convienient for business.
This is our own fault of course. We as individuals have allowed ourselves to be treated as consumers. We have allowed ourselves to be trapped into buying overpackaged convienience foods. We allow our goods to be made with built in obsalesence. We let fashion creep into large items that once we would have bought and used for life. Why do motor cycle manufacturers change the look of their motor bikes year after year? It is to entice customers into buying something that is new, and obviuosly new. A wonderful example of quite the reverse happens in India - here they are manufacturing still a pattern of motorcycle that was built in the United Kingdom in the 1960s. And a wonderful bike it is too. I know a number of bikers who went ot India to buy this specifically.
But India is changing. Like China, it is becoming a consumer society and this will spell diaster for the world as more of the environment and our natural capital will be squandered to feed the monster of consumer demand.
What can an individual do?
Demand less. Simple. Demand better. Demand goods that are built to last. Demand effecient appliances. Demand electricals that do not wait on standby all night and all day when you are out at work. Just walk a few steps , bend and turn the thing on - surely we can't be that lazy. In Britain this week there has been signs that environmentally concerned consumers are getting their views taken seriously by big business. Two of the largest supermarket retailers had a single day where no plastic carrier bags were given free to customers and instead they sold at a very small cost, a reusable shopping bag.
Has the message got through?
Nice idea you might think - but somewhere along the line the marketing department got in on the act. These bags were not just re-usable. They were designer shopping bags. A very famous and clever designer took a plain canvas shopping bag and emblazoned the words "I am not a plastic bag" on the obviously canvas bag.
What a genius thing to do - I could never have designed such a thing. That is scarcasm by the way. My opinion of the desgner is "overpaid twat". There was a massive struggle and media event to get these not plastic bags with great publicity for the chains involved. The bags were being sold in eBay for massively higher prices than the stores charged for them. The bags were only being sold for one day - roll up special one time offer only.
The stores managed to take a sensible environmental idea and turn it into a consumer feeding frenzy. Pitiful. Scenes like this make me think that perhaps, mankind is not worth saving.
I remember what used to happen in supermarkets like this. A good few years back, you never saw a plastic carrier bag. You put your food in the trolly, took it to the check out and once you had paid for it you were able to get a large cardboard box or two, or three, that had held 40 packests of corn flakes when they were delivered to the store. You, the customer, re-used the manufacturers packaging a second time. Then you could reuse teh box for storage or burn it as you started the fire in the evening. Now, being paper based, you can send it to be re-cycled. On top of that, the boxes were a damn sigth easier to carry than a bunch of carrier bags too!
My question: What was wrong with doing this? Why can't we do it now? It saves the shop having to get rid of the boxes the goods arrive in.
When you look at it, the plastic carried bag is just a pointless nusience - but wait they have the name of the shop on them where the boxes don't.
I'ts all clear now, the marketing department have been at it again......
Posts: 1
Reply #2 on : Mon June 04, 2007, 18:33:51
Posts: 1
Reply #1 on : Mon June 04, 2007, 18:29:44