De-commercialization
Applications in brand strategy
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Com·mer·cial·i·za·tion /kəmərSHələˈzāSH(ə)n/ is “the process of managing or running something principally for financial gain.” Related is com·mod·i·fi·ca·tion /kəˌmädəfəˈkāSH(ə)n/, “the transformation of things into objects of trade.”
Commercialization started with industrialization, when products were mass produced instead of being handmade in small batches by the craftsmen. Commercialization turned all sorts of previous luxuries into mass-produced objects (e.g. automobiles, IKEA’s modern, affordable furniture; airplane travel; tourism; fast fashion). The trend spread to art, which largely switched from being social commentator and a critic to an economic investment. It also spread to the accessibility of luxury fashion, to “content” (anything that is posted on social media to be consumed), to movies (we are now on the 55th Avenger sequel), to ourselves (social commerce, creators). Majority of the contemporary cultural, social, economic and even environmental output is a commodity (one can buy carbon-neutral points when flying. Or a Tesla).
De-commercialization is a reverse process. It’s a mechanism of making objects non-tradable. Recently, we have seen a shift in appreciation (of desirability and value) of artisanal items like cookware and homeware, antique furniture and vintage fashion, and hand-crafted objects like kitchen knives. Related is the rise in secondary marketplaces, where the story around an item, item rarity and the high of the hunt is deemed more valuable in value than its price. Creator economy also brought forward the value (and monetization) of individual output. Web3 and non-fungible tokens expanded non-tradable nature of goods, as anything associated with an NFT is one-of-a-kind by default. The consequence is that the value is set based on the social consensus rather than the market place. Alternative models of economic exchange surround non-tradable objects, such is tipping of creators or directly funding creators for their output.
There are several ways of to decommercialize products:
Auctions. By their very format, auctions sell unique items. Even if an item has originally been made as part of a collection or a series (which both influence its price), the value of an item is intangible, defined by social and cultural criteria (desirability, significance) and the auction context.
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