Monthly Archives: July 2009

Imagine if Car Manufacturers brought out a new model every month, and that every car made was just 10% recyclable. And through clever marketing consumers were persuaded to upgrade regularly, even though their car could last years without breaking down.

Imagine if the car industry had no reliable used dealerships and so over 80% of car owners would never contemplate buying or selling a used car – after upgrading they’d typically lose the old one in the back of the garage for a few years before tossing it out. Those who did choose to buy a used cars would take their chances on eBay or meet up with an unknown seller from Craigslist.

Imagine if most of the discarded cars were shipped to Asia because they couldn’t be recycled profitably over here. That these cars were then picked apart by children and peasant workers under forced labor, many of whom would eventually die from contamination. Imagine billions upon billions of wasting cars left on heaps the size of a mountain range, the recyclable 10% having been picked away. Imagine yourself happily buying that car knowing these facts.

In reality would you tolerate such a car industry?

The Consumer electronics reality

We’ve spent the last 3 decades feeding the consumer electronics revolution by happily buy them by the billions and discard them without a second thought, whilst being reassured by advertising that this is the right thing to do, to stay ahead, to be cool, to be at the cutting edge, to stay fresh.

As a professional creative at ad agencies like Ogilvy & Mather, WCRS, Young & Rubican and Publicis, I convinced customers how imperative it was to have the latest Toshiba Laptop, the slickest cellphone from Sony Ericcson, or the must have new iPod Nano. Thanks to humongous advertising budget we were able to create some slick ads, and got paid handsomely for it… the client loved us, and the consumers loved the product.

I manipulated fact by dressing up minor changes in a product as great leaps in technology. It was my job. I had a mortgage. Doing this was fairly easy. I had cut my teeth in advertising doing car ads. I just used the same principal.

So when the client added a mega-pixel here, shaved some quality there, I knew what to write to make it sound fantastic. From Core 2 Duo to Core 2 Extreme, what most people know about an electronics product is what marketing writers like me sent off to the Tech press, who minus a bit of spin thankfully recited most of technical hype verbatim. Thankfully the new generation of Tech blogs are not so easy bedded.

So what do you do about it?
There’s always going to be that person who must have the very latest gadget. We all know him, or somebody like him. He’s the guy who’s already got the iPhone 3G S, and has his eyes on the latest Intel Core2 Extreme CPU.

But then there are those of us who would be perfectly happy with last year’s model providing we can rely on the condition and save a ton of money in the process.

Trade2save.com will be buying used products from the guy who ‘must have the latest’ and selling on to customer who are happy to have last year’s model used, provided they’re saving money and also have a warranty if it breaks down.

By having a trustworthy ‘used’ online retailer who offers the same warranty as a ‘new’ store, customers can finally do something about ewaste and save money without having to meet up with that dodgy guy on Craigslist.