Made to Break (part 1)

Chapters 1-3 of Slade's book "Made to Break" were very interesting to me. Chapter 1 discusses marketing strategies for a world that has yet to have any solid companies. The use of "unique" packaging and "trademark" promises were used to ensure people of the quality in the products they were buying. Today, many companies are already established and it seems that they have set the mold for other companies trying to compete. We see many of the same ideas being recycled or altered in a small way to make other companies look similar enough to the most well known brand that possibly they would be considered the same. I personally find this interesting because it seems in today's society people are making a shift towards the more local/small companies and moving away from the mass produced big company brands. At the same time, unique packaging is still a prime part of marketing for any company because all of the big name companies' packages/brands are so well known that they have become the norm for those products. I wonder if this shift away from big name companies is due to the fact that a "trademark guarantee" doesn't mean anything when people are so aware of ingredients and production information these days. The second chapter of the book really caught my attention because it talked about how Ford was against many of the marketing schemes that are used today by his company and basically any company with enough money to advertise. In this chapter, Slade quotes Calkin stating "...beauty, became a factor in the production and marketing goods" (49). I find it funny that Ford seemed to be against this type of marketing because it makes the product out to be dishonest or fantasized. Although I find this view to be true, the affect of advertisements on the human mind is so strong that people really are persuaded in some way whether they want to be or not. Seeing a constant image over and over again, especially when it looks perfect, will make a person consider that product when they are looking for something like it. Chapter 3's discussion of 'death dating' was the part of this book I was most looking forward to reading. Although it seems to be a shady practice, if a company does not give you a lifetime guarantee, they are not obligated to make the product to the 100% of their ability. It seems most companies only put about 80% of their ability into making their products in order to ensure that the business will continue to grow. This just proves that big companies never look at their customers as human beings, but as numbers. With this being said, I think our ability to recognize this and openly talk about it in a book is what is starting to drive people to more local/smaller companies who can only use quality of their products to battle the big mass produced products. If products aren't breaking physically, technology is constantly growing and evolving rendering products useless or incapable by the time 5 years go by. "People buy a new car, not because the old one is worn out, but because it is no longer modern" (49) explains this dilemma perfectly and speaks to the culture that we are living in today. The constant need to be "up to date" is what fuels many of these technological companies' success.