Owning The Idea: The Designer Fire Extinguisher

The subject of a recent Rob Walker column in the New York Times magazine reminds us of a key trend Allan Chochinov told us about in his presentation at PSFK Conference New York 07. Allan argued that we were beginning to consume the idea of a product as much as consuming the product itself (you watch the video and work that out). Rob talks about the elegant ‘designer’ fire extinguisher that sells for $25 in HomeDepot (the red ones retail at about $9) and points out that in the awards it has won and the reviews that it’s received, no-one ever mentions how well it works – just how good it looks.