People enjoy the rapid change that improved technology brings, and benefit from it. But quick, unexpected changes also create hidden, psychological disappointment. Sophisticated, developed countries are yet to understand that there is a drawback in using technology advancement as an excuse for frequent product upgrades. Consumers love the new versions technology throws up, but not if they feel victimised. Intermittent upgrades are increasingly being seen as what I call ?technology pollution.?
Product lifespan in a consumer?s hand has drastically reduced. An automobile?s span of life has come down from 15 to three-five years; a refrigerator?s from 40 to five years. Technology driven hardware or software barely lasts six to eight months. The masses accept such quick obsolescence because they just cannot control their temptation to acquire high tech alternatives. In the technology market, there appears to be concerted propaganda about the desirability of technological advancement. Consequently it becomes necessary to change whatever you bought a year earlier as that has become antiquated.
Manufacturers pretend they have no control over the technology blitz. Hype for the new initially excites consumers; they don?t see any gap. Instead they often empathise with technology?s creative dimension, and its need to continuously move up. When consumers can no longer afford to keep up with the technology marketing tide, will they feel the jagged edge of becoming a victim? This is an underwater, unstated feeling today.
Digital quality normally has no variance. The low cost, pirated product is technically not inferior to the original expensive DVD. Is the consumer happy to spend money on form, not content, especially as it?s not a personal or intimate product? Organisations that unnecessarily release high-priced products instead of giving consumers value for money actually encourage piracy. Instead, a marketing judgment could have been made. Volume sales, when planned at inception, can actually compensate a reduced market price.
A consumer bonds better with an inexpensive pirated DVD that gives the same result as the original. She feels righteous about having beaten the system that was trying to somehow cheat her. On a rational level, consumers don?t care about the legal issues of piracy. They just appreciate a logical price. So when authentic DVD and CD labels cry themselves hoarse about being hoodwinked by piracy and appeal for justice, consumers may pay lip service to fair dealing, but it cuts no ice with them.
How long will new technology tempt consumers? You buy a mobile phone for Rs 45,000. After eight months the price reduces to half. A new model with a new gadget emerges. The consumer?s subconscious resentment is, ?Why didn?t I wait for eight months?? Did she feel cheated? Advanced technology is good, but what about the economic jerk you feel in keeping up with it? The shock of sudden price reduction will erase a consumer?s emotional bond with the product and brand, and she will forever lose its pride of ownership. Over-consumption of technology products can make people disloyal to a brand, or to a product segment.
As advanced technology is rapidly reducing product cost, a corporate buy-back/exchange policy for technology products will encourage higher per capita consumption. It will also make a brand credible. A used technology product can be taken back at a value that depends on its age and condition; simultaneously a new product offered at a lower-than-market price.
Durables such as telephones, computers, TVs, CD players, mobile music devices and hi fi sets should be very careful about abusing people?s confidence. When they do so, a parallel repair or refurbish market can emerge in future to attract price conscious people. Those driven by status will always go for new things, but a manufacturer can lose major value and volume market share from almost-new repaired or refurbished products. Corporations that engage in drastic price cuts at short intervals will never be seen as good corporate citizens.
Hollywood started the version culture. Once a mega film is successful with the masses, it is used as a formula to reproduce sequels. This generates box office demand. Versions drag entertainment into manifesting itself as mass industrial production. People perceive this as reducing cinematography from being an art form to becoming soap opera driven by newer versions. Unlike art that?s unique and cannot be reproduced as mass consumption, people get conditioned to the characters and genre of the versions, and can guess what?s coming in the next film. Subconsciously, people feel distanced from the version culture as it does not have the stamp of originality.
Hollywood?s version culture has stormed into different businesses today. It is very visible in the IT domain. The moment any computer software is upgraded, engineers and scientists working in an organisation will hear of it in their profession, and request for the new version. The current output may be satisfactory, but speed and added features are what the software user is after. His mental make-up is that he will fall short of fashion in the eyes of his peers unless he keeps up with technology advancement. Also, of course, his professional curriculum vitae may get contaminated without working knowledge on the latest version.
New versions may be materialising every year or two now. You will feel the financial burden of succumbing to technology improvements when these changes become quarterly or monthly in future. Advancement is indispensable, but when you blindly chase versions you lose the emotional link to technology innovation. Today?s techno-savvy generation is losing the value of emotional attachment influenced by frequent technology upgrades. They do not value what they buy because it will soon be discarded. Cohabiting with the value of impermanence, they have become vulnerable to being attached to almost nothing in life.
Such swift technology changes can at best bring incremental improvement. Real renovation needs requisite time for an existing model to stabilise before it is re-launched in the market. Titillating consumers with incremental changes is like hypnotising them with a few bells and whistles. Industry should stop taking percentage increase in technology into the market. Product performance should become stable before unsettling consumers with numerous new versions.
If you are a manufacturer or product designer, put yourself in the consumer?s shoes. You need to experience and understand her unarticulated, frustrated woes. If you can find, feel and measure the jagged discrepancy in her mind, you will obviously step into the platform of real innovation. You can definitely make the difference by stopping incremental refurbishment with multi-version remakes that perpetuates the version culture.
?Shombit Sengupta is an international creative business strategy consultant to top managements. Reach him at http://www.shiningconsulting.com