Alex Kretena recently was attributed to this quote:
“Bartenders are fed up with the rapid purchase cycle: buy, use, discard, repeat, the new generation wants products with sustainability and purpose."
We call this the Product Paradox.
Since modern means of manufacturing evolved, deliberate obsolescence/product failure was inbuilt into all design to encourage on-going product consumption..meaning breakage, wastage, fatigue.
The result of hidden product design failure: customers having to buy more.
Over the last 75 years it’s been generally accepted that product failure was just a normal part of life, greeted with an accepting shrug of the shoulders.
Aided and abetted by oblivious customers, lining up to rebuy what they’d just bought.
So why then would any right thinking manufacturer design or produce anything better when customers agreed to pay less for progressively worse products?
Überbartools founders by Michael Silvers and Sam Tam, in the early part of this century conceived the guiding principles of the Company, built around 21st century design innovation with quality and sustainability a key to unlock the ground hog day of the Product Paradox.
Ironically bar tool technology seemed to be forever locked into a vortex of failed prohibition inspired design, creating the space for the: buy, use, discard and replace paradigm to exist.
Today’s Millennials think of resources in terms of being limited and therefore requiring careful thought based on the sound principles of sustainability, ergonomics, comfort, speed and efficiency.
The rise of premiumisation has ushered in a new age of design re-thinking where, quality, sustainability and the elevation of craftsmanship are heralded, eschewing the ethics associated with the Product Paradox.