Ikea is a global phenomenon, but its success reveals western society's desire to consume trends and short-term products.
Ikea's ability to produce temporal products to a new generation of consumers is probably the pinnacle example of materialism and societal desire for new practical products. At first glance Ikea appears to be an inexpensive answer to a need for the young, hip, and stylistically savvy. Ikea has done for furniture what stores like Wal-Mart and Target have done for clothes - a mass market for the average or beginner consumer. However, the argument that Ikea's popularity merely ranges from an answer to consumers' needs is a short sighted one. Had the phenomenon been an answer, western nations would understand why they consume instead of what they consume. Ikea is not an answer; it is a fix.
When browsing through the numerous products, space savers, unique designs that Ikea stores showcase, one will eventually discover that most of the furniture and products do not carry the signature of enduring craftsmanship. Majority of the furniture is a quick temporal solution for people without a lot of space, time, or money. In other words, most of western humanity. But its unsubstantial wooden slabs and wobbly table tops is ironically a marketing ploy. It is suppose to last a short time. It is a temporary product. Consumers like it this way.
Trends and Consumerism
When a consumer buys an Ikea product they are buying a fashion product - fleeting, temporal, trendy. Trends change faster and faster as the 'need' for consumers to spend accelerates. Western nations have had fashion trends for many years and now this idea of trends has transcribed into the funky furniture of modern urbanites.
The psychology of trends is an interesting mindset for consumers. Trends pose a need, and then qualify that need with consumption. As trends change so does the programmed 'need.' Ben Bagdikian raises an interesting point when writing in his book The Media Monopoly (1983/2000). Bagdikian, although speaking of corporations' use of fleeting symbols and images to sell their products, makes an appropriate point for the radical 'changes' to keep the consumer hooked.
"As viewers and readers get used to the massively displayed symbols, the symbols change to the latest idea or personality or national emotion until it, too, in days or weeks, becomes meaningless, part of the continuous and deliberate slag heap of mass communications."
If this 'slag heap' of symbols used by corporate media is constantly changing to give the consumer another reason to buy, than the tangible products these symbols and ideas refer to are but wasted ventures that accumulate around the house - the remnants of a quick fix.
The problem with mass produced consumer goods is not that they are cheap or even practical but when critically evaluated as consumer answers, they are little more than quick fixes for expected growing consumer needs. The unsubstantial products age and break and the need for replacements emerge. The consumer accepts this reality because the trend will have become meaningless and forgotten. The pressures of 'need' to accumulate trendy new products or replace the ones that were never meant to last is a symptom of consumer acceptance of corporate doctrine - A constant cycle of use, replace, and waste. Ikea solves a short-term internal problem by ignoring an external long-term one. Ikea is not a solution; it is a symptom.
