Marketing, simply put, is a strategy to get consumers to buy things. Since ancient times, many companies have been engaged in various marketing activities in order to somehow increase sales. Here are two examples of marketing
In the 1954s, automakers introduced a new car every year as a model change. The new car might look completely different from the previous year's model, but from a technical point of view it was virtually identical.
This model change is a clever strategy to motivate people to buy. This approach applies to the current smartphone industry as well.
The short period of model changeover each year seems to have had the advantage of reflecting technological innovations in products quickly.
In 1924, about 100 years after the invention of the light bulb, an international business agreement was secretly concluded to control the production and sale of incandescent light bulbs, known as the Poivos Cartel.
Companies participating in the cartel implemented a worldwide program of planned obsolescence in which the life of an incandescent light bulb was not to exceed 1,000 hours. The purpose was to increase sales of light bulbs by forcing consumers to buy more bulbs.
This is said to have reduced legitimate competition in the light bulb industry for about 20 years and prevented the development of technologies to produce longer-lasting bulbs.
In the 21st century, we hear people say that the world is now changing more dramatically or more rapidly than ever before, and one of the reasons for this can be attributed to the fact that today is the age of marketing. Because companies are launching new products in a short period of time, we may be under the illusion that our era is changing more rapidly than other eras.
Of course, the 21st century has seen many groundbreaking inventions and discoveries. But even in the 19th century, when the Industrial Revolution took place, we had the telephone, the internal combustion engine (powering automobiles), the phonograph, photography, the incandescent light bulb, transparent film, toilet paper, fountain pens, barbed wire, machine guns, dishwashers, sewing machines, dynamite, radios, vacuum cleaners, and air conditioners. fan, and many other inventions in the 20th century. The 20th century also saw the invention of the airplane, plastic, cellophane, and many others.
Even today, electrical appliances are sometimes designed with deliberately short product life spans so that planned obsolescence will force customers to buy new products. New products are introduced every year and advertised as if they are equipped with the latest and most important features, when in fact they are not much different from older models. Is it something you really want? Or is it what the company wants you to think you want?