EPISODE 19
Does Fulfilment Kill Desire?
When everything is available and abundant, what makes something truly desirable?
I like reflecting on the meaning of words. I was thinking, for instance, that to satisfy a desire is also, in a way, to exhaust it.
As consumers, we live in an extraordinary time. A time in which almost every new need, every desire, can be satisfied almost immediately. The offer is vast and, in very little time, becomes abundant. And yet, in many markets, demand seems quite literally to be fading. Even in categories we consider essential.
After years in which almost every request has found an answer, many of the desires that once filled our “wish lists” have lost their intensity. In a satiated society, where almost everything is within reach, what still has the power to spark desire?
Perhaps it is the abundance of choice itself that has begun to bore us. Perhaps the market has learned to satisfy us too quickly. Perhaps, when every desire is met with an immediate answer, something fundamental is missing: meaning.
A proposition that perpetuates a voracious model of consumption, increasingly detached from meaning, now feels outdated. An offer that tirelessly reproduces a tired consumerist paradigm, however rich or prolific, is no longer enough.
We are people looking for meaning, rather than simply more things to own. And so the question for anyone working with brands becomes inevitable: When everything is available and abundant, what makes something truly desirable?
Perhaps it is not simply the quality of the answer. And certainly not its quantity. Perhaps it is also the way that answer reaches us. The meaning it carries. The story it tells. The experience it creates.
The real challenge for brands is no longer simply to respond to needs. It is to create experiences, meanings and stories. To offer new dimensions capable of addressing a need that consumption alone can no longer satisfy: the need for meaning. To nurture desires that carry renewed value in the world we inhabit. A world saturated with things, yet increasingly aware of its own fragility.
1:20
19
EPISODE
Does Fulfilment Kill Desire?
When everything is available and abundant, what makes something truly desirable?
I like reflecting on the meaning of words. I was thinking, for instance, that to satisfy a desire is also, in a way, to exhaust it.
As consumers, we live in an extraordinary time. A time in which almost every new need, every desire, can be satisfied almost immediately. The offer is vast and, in very little time, becomes abundant. And yet, in many markets, demand seems quite literally to be fading. Even in categories we consider essential.
After years in which almost every request has found an answer, many of the desires that once filled our “wish lists” have lost their intensity. In a satiated society, where almost everything is within reach, what still has the power to spark desire?
Perhaps it is the abundance of choice itself that has begun to bore us. Perhaps the market has learned to satisfy us too quickly. Perhaps, when every desire is met with an immediate answer, something fundamental is missing: meaning.
A proposition that perpetuates a voracious model of consumption, increasingly detached from meaning, now feels outdated. An offer that tirelessly reproduces a tired consumerist paradigm, however rich or prolific, is no longer enough.
We are people looking for meaning, rather than simply more things to own. And so the question for anyone working with brands becomes inevitable: When everything is available and abundant, what makes something truly desirable?
Perhaps it is not simply the quality of the answer. And certainly not its quantity. Perhaps it is also the way that answer reaches us. The meaning it carries. The story it tells. The experience it creates.
The real challenge for brands is no longer simply to respond to needs. It is to create experiences, meanings and stories. To offer new dimensions capable of addressing a need that consumption alone can no longer satisfy: the need for meaning. To nurture desires that carry renewed value in the world we inhabit. A world saturated with things, yet increasingly aware of its own fragility.