Communication about Planned Obsolescence as an Atypical Two-sided Message

While many information technology vendors deliberately cut their products’ lifecycles to elicit repeat purchases, consumers are often unaware of such planned obsolescence. This paper investigates the effects of atypical two-sided communication about planned obsolescence on consumers’ beliefs and buying intentions. Drawing upon insights from inoculation theory, we hypothesize that trust and intent to buy initially decrease after individuals are exposed to communication about planned obsolescence, but that they partly bounce back after some time during which the inoculated individuals get a chance to discuss and practice counter-arguing the two-sided message. Through a repeated measures survey design, we confirm the study’s main hypotheses. We also show that the drop in intent to buy depends on gender, the importance given to friendship, and the weighted average decrease in friends’ intent to buy.