'Buy less' campaigns don't work

lse.ac.uk

13 points·hhs··4 comments

I beg to differ.

Retailers pay an obsessive amount of attention to shoppers’ habits. The best thing everyone can do when prices are too high people high is to simply stop buying. Retailers notice immediately.

I don't follow your argument. Why would those facts make PSAs effective at changing consumer shopping habits?

If my response sounded like a non-sequiter to you, well, yours sounded like one to me. The article is not about whether retailers pay attention to shopper's habits, nor does it have anything to do with high prices.

Instead, it is entirely about whether advertising campaigns encouraging people to buy and consume less (for environmental reasons, not economic protest) actually change the behavior of the people who hear them. It concludes that they do not. Do you still beg to differ?

That's already commonly acknowledged behavior separate from the degrowth strategy the article is publishing.

Although, there are many politicians pushing to prohibit retailers from offering customers a lower price, when they notice that customer is unwilling to pay full price.

I think they do but only when combined with other acts such as less constant advertising of products. This would be the equivalent of saying AA meetings don't work, whilst permanently waving a bottle of alcohol in someone's face.

I would also say buy less, buy only what you need to replace and can't be repaired, and buy more sustainable and long lasting, are three different tactics, that can all work together but can target different people individually. There will be different socioeconomic factors that perhaps affect which theory certain groups of people go for.

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