Marketing-induced obsolescence is a strategy where businesses create marketing, sales, and advertising plans designed to persuade individuals to accept the premature obsolescence of their goods. It is also called aesthetic, cultural, or psychological obsolescence.
HOP’s successful initiatives in France have made both more affordable repair services (via the repair bonus) and more environmentally friendly products (through repairability and durability indexes) accessible to everyone, even as calls for overconsumption continue to spread widely.
Contemporary sales techniques are far-reaching.
This is the number of advertising stimuli we process every day, whether by watching ads directly or simply by being exposed to logos.
Advertising has undergone substantial changes. Modern online ads now employ highly effective algorithmic targeting. Influencers contribute to brands’ extensive presence on social media, while calls to purchase unsustainable products are increasingly challenged.
Marketing-induced obsolescence is commonly associated with the textile and the fast or disposable fashion industries. Unfortunately, it also impacts other sectors, such as multimedia, home furnishings, and automotive industries. This tendency for premature replacement similarly affects smartphones, with marketing strategies encouraging consumers to purchase newer models.
of French people replace their mobile phone while it still works.
Source: HOP 2025 survey.
How to protect yourself against marketing obsolescence?
Marketing obsolescence pushes us into buying more. The impact of our unsustainable production and consumption habits cannot be solely attributed to consumers, who are often the victims of a system imposed upon them.
In France, like in many countries, there is a lack of advertising regulation. Only a few advertising practices are prohibited due to public health concerns (e.g. tobacco or alcohol-related bans) or environmental concerns (such as greenwashing). The predominant approach – self-regulation – leaves enough room for marketing obsolescence practices. The “Consumer Code”, a collection of legal provisions and rules, safeguards consumers and includes the notion of “misleading commercial practice”.
Marketing obsolescence is one of the main working areas of our association. In its new report Made to overconsume, HOP explores the impact of marketing-induced obsolescence on consumers and the active role it plays in overconsumption. The association is putting forward 30 recommendations, such as:
- acknowledging marketing obsolescence as a criminal offence under French and European legislation;
- strengthening advertising regulation, including the authority to impose sanctions;
- ensuring the French government, in collaboration with all the stakeholders, implements a sustainable marketing and responsible consumption roadmap, leading to a legal framework by 2026.
The report includes results from an exclusive survey carried out by the Occurrence cabinet from the IFOP Group in March 2025, which highlights, in particular, that 66 per cent of French people feel overexposed to advertising.
In 2020, our association submitted a complaint to the Advertising Ethics Board in France for an advertisement found to be inconsistent with the sustainable development recommendations of the French professional advertising regulatory authority (ARPP) and, more globally, to the circular economy principles.
To help us address this obsolescence strategy, support HOP.
