Growing up in the 80 in Israel I had all that I needed, but very limited variety in every consumption category. There were many products but not a lot of brands.
Years later, when I joined the advertising world, most of my clients' briefs were true innovations to the market. However, as time went on - most of them became only pseudo-innovative – new flavors, packaging, usage etc. But true innovation moved from marketing to technology, and especially to non-tangibles. Consumer goods became all about brands competition and not true market needs. At the same time, a growing consumer segment is getting sick and tired of the existing consumption patterns, valuing instead their happiness and the environment in which they live and thrive.
I left the world of "more consumption" and started walking in the path of "what kind of consumption?" creating campaigns to change consumption patterns, mostly funded by government and pilanthropic funds. Seven years later I look back and see that most of them were educating to reduce. Reduce meat consumption, energy / food / gas consumption, and littering. Some were meant to encourage people to do more – more recycling, more cycling, more sports. People love the "more things". We are competitive by nature.
When I joined IE Applied I wanted to research a third option: can we use the same tools we used for pushing consumption to change our linear-economy into a circular one, and redefine our values of consumption? How should we position truly responsible consumption as sexy and desirable?
In Meadows' "The limits of growth" from 1972 he says "People don’t need enormous cars; they need respect. They don’t need closet full of clothes; they need to feel attractive and they need excitement and variety and beauty. People don’t need electronic entertainment; they need something worthwhile to do with their lives. And so forth. People need identity, community, challenge, acknowledgement, love, joy".
My research takes these questions and applies them to a specific sector and product. In it I ask what is the influence of Hedonism on the adoption of alternative fuel vehicles? You are welcome to read about it in my second post.