Why the public has a persistant feeling of unsatisfaction or How designers get paid.
– from reveries –
“This phenomenon, generated by market forces, media hype and twitchy retailers, creates a cycle in which products are constantly improved even if they don’t need to be,” writes Allen Sarkin in The New York Times (7/15/07). He’s talking about “feature creep,” or “the incessant rush of innovation that pushes manufacturers to tamper with products that consumers feel are already perfect.” The issue is particularly pronounced in the running-shoe category. “There’s this need to continue to evolve and have consumers feel like things are getting better, and that the needle is being moved even if it isn’t,” says David Willey of Runner’s World magazine. David admits that his magazine is part of the problem.
Feature creep is also in evidence in cosmetics: “When Lancome discontinued a moisturizer called Nutrix in 2004 to make way for a new version, Nutrix Royal, the company received more than 1,000 phone calls, e-mail messages and letters from bewildered devotees.” Lancome eventually relented and re-introduced the original. In cars, BMW has evolved “from a nimble and relatively small car” of the 1980s into a “heavy luxury liner” today. A Honda spokesperson also admits that the company “might have abandoned its old customer base, those who want small, practical, inexpensive cars.” It responded by introducing “the compact $13,850 Fit wagon … and sold all 50,000 imported into the United States.”
MAC Cosmetics, meanwhile, “has a section on its website called Goodbyes, where it sells limited edition or discontinued products, like Speed Demon Lip Varnish.” However, some companies see the value of sticking “with a successful product even as fashions change … Since 1993, Casio has been selling the same dependable digital watch, model F30-9, fo $7.95, with the same functions — time and date in a black case, on a black band, nothing more. And since 1983, the company has sold 45 million of its G-Shock series of digital watches.” Casio plans to celebrate its 25th anniversary next year with “a special version of its first model, the DW-500, which came only in black.” Except that this time it will be white. As Casio’s David Johnson explains: “White is wicked hot in watches right now.”