The Life of Things – Who owns it, who cares?

4 min read

Remember that cave I am living in? Probably not. No doubt you have consumed so much other content that the first ‘Who Cares’ article is a very distant memory.

Anyway back to my cave – I don't own it, in fact I no longer own anything.

But individual ownership is the very foundation on which the market economy and capitalism were built. We can’t help but place disproportionate value on the things we own. It’s what behavioural scientists call ‘the endowment effect’. Google it and you will come across an experiment which involves students, mugs and chocolate. In essence this experiment proved that once we own something or even imagine we could own it, we place significantly higher value on it, both emotionally and financially.

Think money-back guarantees, thirty day free trials, test driving a car, easy returns – these are all designed to make us feel a sense of ownership and to tap into another innate behaviour, the fear of losing what we have.

This is great for brands, not so great for the planet.

But consumer behaviour is changing and new business models are going from strength to strength, spurred by economic depressions, a growing social awareness and a new generation of consumers. We are told that consumers who are less interested in the status and the personal fulfillment that comes from owning things, instead, are motivated by a desire for experiences that enrich their lives.

We have got used to not owning music or films, and the instant access Spotify, Netflix and others give us to vast libraries of entertainment. And now subscription services have extended beyond digital to physical products with everything from underwear to toilet paper.

Who Gives a Crap, the subscription based toilet paper company, experienced exponential growth in early March 2020, prompted by panic buying amid pandemic lockdowns and consumers’ increasing desire to support purpose-led businesses. As a result, the business donated more than £4.5 million to help build toilets and improve sanitation in the developing world. Take another essential – at least for me – coffee. Pact Coffee is on a mission to change a broken industry. Apparently 2 billion cups of coffee are consumed every day, but farmers and producers see very little of the profits and the environment is suffering. This subscription service delivers coffee from around the world, with total transparency and traceability.

It’s a very similar story for Mud Jeans. Bert van Son, Mud’s founder, witnessed that life for factory workers is extremely demanding, and that the endless demands for material, due to exploded production, is ruining our planet. So Mud leases their jeans to customers. They take full responsibility for the manufacture, repurposing, recycling and reusing of the product - the objective, no waste at all. It is a genuine example of a full circle business.

These brands are appealing to the socially conscious consumer. In the case of Who Gives a Crap and Pact Coffee by subscribing to something we would purchase anyway, it’s not only convenient – particularly in a global pandemic – but we believe we are doing good. They are highlighting issues we would perhaps like to ignore, or maybe they simply salve our conscience and enable us to continue to enjoy the luxuries of life without curbing our behaviour.

It is an inconvenient truth that while these new business models may be replacing ownership as we know it, they are not resulting in less consumption. The very nature of subscriptions gives us continuous variety that would be unimaginable. We now have an expectation of constant updates of our software and hardware, with access to the latest models. Why hold on to something for years, when something newer and shinier can be yours in minutes?

With renting comes the demand for constant availability, your furniture, your clothing, your transport. You pay for precisely what you use, when you use it – and nothing more. But for every bike conveniently located for me to use, there are many littering the streets unused, and ending up in dumps. In China, where bike sharing was adopted on a grand scale there are huge piles of abandoned and broken bicycles. In just one year Beijing removed 44,000 bikes from the city centre, in order to cap bike numbers and stop them being discarded.

Is sharing different? On the face of it, it would appear so. If a single item, owned by one person can be shared amongst multiple people, the impact on consumption and use of the world's resources is significant. But it goes deeper than that. Sharing has significant emotional and social benefits and it’s being embraced by individuals, businesses and entire cities.

Fat Llama, initially in London, now in New York allows you to rent (almost) everything.

Library of Things, on a mission to make borrowing better than buying, now has multiple locations around the UK. They create communities and provide social connection, as well as the power drill you need for an hour. Amsterdam, maybe unsurprisingly, was the first city to declare itself a sharing city, but many others are following suit. In Barcelona, citizens are sharing their time – maybe the most valuable asset – through Time Banks. Whether it’s reading a book to an old person, helping with homework, watering plants, repairing things or simply accompanying people on a walk. And we can’t really talk about sharing without talking about AirBnB. They are a trailblazer – connecting people who have, with others who would like to share what they have. Perhaps one of the 1400 islands listed on the platform.

So what does all this mean for brands and consumers – these new ways of using, accessing and experiencing. Fundamentally it boils down to two things, trust and responsibility. A wise person once told me that you cannot say you are trusted, it can only be demonstrated and experienced through your actions. Successful brands create a platform and a framework within which individuals can trust each other. They are transparent and consistent in their service so that we trust them. And they take responsibility for what they make just as we need to take responsibility for what we consume.

A story, which perhaps talks to taking responsibility for a future we will not be here to see. 500 years ago a forester planted a drive of Oak trees in the grounds of Oxford University so that when the beams in the great dining hall needed to be replaced they could be. This knowledge was passed down through generations of foresters until the day the trees were finally called on.

Have a listen, it’s a lovely story.

Frances Jackson
Founder OPX

4 min read

Remember that cave I am living in? Probably not. No doubt you have consumed so much other content that the first ‘Who Cares’ article is a very distant memory.

Anyway back to my cave – I don't own it, in fact I no longer own anything.

But individual ownership is the very foundation on which the market economy and capitalism were built. We can’t help but place disproportionate value on the things we own. It’s what behavioural scientists call ‘the endowment effect’. Google it and you will come across an experiment which involves students, mugs and chocolate. In essence this experiment proved that once we own something or even imagine we could own it, we place significantly higher value on it, both emotionally and financially.

Think money-back guarantees, thirty day free trials, test driving a car, easy returns – these are all designed to make us feel a sense of ownership and to tap into another innate behaviour, the fear of losing what we have.

This is great for brands, not so great for the planet.

But consumer behaviour is changing and new business models are going from strength to strength, spurred by economic depressions, a growing social awareness and a new generation of consumers. We are told that consumers who are less interested in the status and the personal fulfillment that comes from owning things, instead, are motivated by a desire for experiences that enrich their lives.

We have got used to not owning music or films, and the instant access Spotify, Netflix and others give us to vast libraries of entertainment. And now subscription services have extended beyond digital to physical products with everything from underwear to toilet paper.

Who Gives a Crap, the subscription based toilet paper company, experienced exponential growth in early March 2020, prompted by panic buying amid pandemic lockdowns and consumers’ increasing desire to support purpose-led businesses. As a result, the business donated more than £4.5 million to help build toilets and improve sanitation in the developing world. Take another essential – at least for me – coffee. Pact Coffee is on a mission to change a broken industry. Apparently 2 billion cups of coffee are consumed every day, but farmers and producers see very little of the profits and the environment is suffering. This subscription service delivers coffee from around the world, with total transparency and traceability.

It’s a very similar story for Mud Jeans. Bert van Son, Mud’s founder, witnessed that life for factory workers is extremely demanding, and that the endless demands for material, due to exploded production, is ruining our planet. So Mud leases their jeans to customers. They take full responsibility for the manufacture, repurposing, recycling and reusing of the product - the objective, no waste at all. It is a genuine example of a full circle business.

These brands are appealing to the socially conscious consumer. In the case of Who Gives a Crap and Pact Coffee by subscribing to something we would purchase anyway, it’s not only convenient – particularly in a global pandemic – but we believe we are doing good. They are highlighting issues we would perhaps like to ignore, or maybe they simply salve our conscience and enable us to continue to enjoy the luxuries of life without curbing our behaviour.

It is an inconvenient truth that while these new business models may be replacing ownership as we know it, they are not resulting in less consumption. The very nature of subscriptions gives us continuous variety that would be unimaginable. We now have an expectation of constant updates of our software and hardware, with access to the latest models. Why hold on to something for years, when something newer and shinier can be yours in minutes?

With renting comes the demand for constant availability, your furniture, your clothing, your transport. You pay for precisely what you use, when you use it – and nothing more. But for every bike conveniently located for me to use, there are many littering the streets unused, and ending up in dumps. In China, where bike sharing was adopted on a grand scale there are huge piles of abandoned and broken bicycles. In just one year Beijing removed 44,000 bikes from the city centre, in order to cap bike numbers and stop them being discarded.

Is sharing different? On the face of it, it would appear so. If a single item, owned by one person can be shared amongst multiple people, the impact on consumption and use of the world's resources is significant. But it goes deeper than that. Sharing has significant emotional and social benefits and it’s being embraced by individuals, businesses and entire cities.

Fat Llama, initially in London, now in New York allows you to rent (almost) everything.

Library of Things, on a mission to make borrowing better than buying, now has multiple locations around the UK. They create communities and provide social connection, as well as the power drill you need for an hour. Amsterdam, maybe unsurprisingly, was the first city to declare itself a sharing city, but many others are following suit. In Barcelona, citizens are sharing their time – maybe the most valuable asset – through Time Banks. Whether it’s reading a book to an old person, helping with homework, watering plants, repairing things or simply accompanying people on a walk. And we can’t really talk about sharing without talking about AirBnB. They are a trailblazer – connecting people who have, with others who would like to share what they have. Perhaps one of the 1400 islands listed on the platform.

So what does all this mean for brands and consumers – these new ways of using, accessing and experiencing. Fundamentally it boils down to two things, trust and responsibility. A wise person once told me that you cannot say you are trusted, it can only be demonstrated and experienced through your actions. Successful brands create a platform and a framework within which individuals can trust each other. They are transparent and consistent in their service so that we trust them. And they take responsibility for what they make just as we need to take responsibility for what we consume.

A story, which perhaps talks to taking responsibility for a future we will not be here to see. 500 years ago a forester planted a drive of Oak trees in the grounds of Oxford University so that when the beams in the great dining hall needed to be replaced they could be. This knowledge was passed down through generations of foresters until the day the trees were finally called on.

Have a listen, it’s a lovely story.

Frances Jackson
CEO OPX