{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title":"Time for Things Labor, Leisure, and the Rise of Mass Consumption","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780674250529","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","uuid":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title":"Time for Things Labor, Leisure, and the Rise of Mass Consumption","normalized_title":"timeforthingslaborleisureandtheriseofmassconsumption","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780674250529","isbns":["9780674250529","9780674250536","9780674979512"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":355,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Time%20for%20Things%20Labor%2C%20Leisure%2C%20and%20the%20Rise%20of%20Mass%20Consumption","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/search"},"page":{"printed_page":189,"pdf_page":197,"physical_index":197,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"6286892a5c280ce2d14a6585d9cb974ab6350e8d9c00970704e0f4975da719c7"},"chapter":"FOR","content":"Commercial warranties operated to reinforce brands, serving to signal that a good has superior attributes, and to indicate that a manufacturer stands behind its products. One marketing innovation in the early part of the century was the creation of the “lifetime” warranty. The earliest newspaper advertisements for products with such a warranty appeared in the 1920s.23 The lifetime warranty was to some degree a slippery marketing ruse, since the meaning of “lifetime” could be the lifetime of the original owner, an indefinite commitment over the lifetime of all owners, some specified period of time (typically twenty or twenty-five years) thought lengthy enough to qualify as a “lifetime,” or, somewhat tautologically, the lifetime of the product itself, whatever that happens to be. Which of these applied in a given warranty was often left deliberately vague, or else was hidden in small print. At the same time, for some manufacturers standing behind their “lifetime” warranties was an important marketing strategy. Sheafer Pens, for example, was renowned for the level of support it provided for its “lifetime” product line, which was introduced in 1924 and was signified by the presence of a white dot on the pen cap. Sheafer’s 1924 advertising campaign for its new line of pens promised that they would be “unconditionally guaranteed for a lifetime.” The company had a very good reputation for addressing any issues consumers had with their products, regardless of how old the products were.24 Parker Pens, Sheafer’s main competitor, also warrantied many of its pens for the lifetime of the original owner.\n\nIt is tempting to think that ofering lifetime warranties was an attractive marketing strategy for these companies because pens are more likely to get lost than break, in efect limiting the costs entailed by the obligation to repair or replace broken pens. However, the robustness of the warranty ofered by these companies was reflected in the durability of the products covered by it. Both Sheafer and Parker made serious eforts to ensure that their products were maximally durable, insisting, for example, on manufacturing tolerances far more stringent than is typical of most contemporary consumer products. Sheafer’s whole marketing strategy was based on creating a reputation for producing uncompromisingly high-quality, durable pens.25 The principle followed in production was the opposite of planned obsolescence (a topic discussed at length in chapter nine of this book). The objective was to make products that would indeed last for a lifetime rather than for as many years as on average a pen would be owned before it was lost. The durability of perhaps the most famous pen in mid-century America, the Parker 51, for example, was such that it quickly approached the point of saturating its market, prompting the company to turn toward a segmented marketing strategy for the line.26 So at least in some cases “lifetime” warranties were anchored to products engineered to last for much longer than average durations of actual use. In those cases, durability was a significant selling point, and good warranty support was an important part of marketing and public relations.27 More typically, however, warranties specified conditions of “normal usage,” the violation of which would result in the voiding of the warranty.\n\nStandardizing Utility\n\n189","previous_page":188,"next_page":190}