As the Digital Marketing Manager at Advanced Remarketing Services, Jillian Barron blends marketing expertise with a passion for circular solutions. With a deep understanding of consumer psychology and years of experience navigating the pressures of modern marketing, she brings a rare dual perspective to sustainability—one that illuminates how circular economies intersect with real human behavior. Her work focuses on helping people cut through noise, rethink consumption, and make intentional choices that benefit both their communities and the planet.
Black Friday – a day of celebrated consumerism across the U.S. with doorbuster deals, BOGOs galore, and exclusive offers. For those of us passionate enough to get up at 4am, brave the traffic, and be the first in line when doors open, it’s a thrilling marathon, and one that I embarked on with my mom and girlfriends as a shared bonding experience. But more and more, it feels like this once-a-year event is being stretched out to cover the rest of the calendar – and it’s exhausting.
Between online ads that seem to fill my social feeds more than my friends’ content, video ads on streaming services (because who can afford all those premium prices?), and an inbox full of discounts and product promos, the constant voice of “Buy, buy, buy!” is deafening. And as a professional marketer, I get the driving force behind these messages. The pressure to be successful in business is daunting, and more eyeballs equals more sales.
I’m not here to say that businesses need to stop promoting products or services and leave us alone. I’m also not here to say that shopping and spending is an evil monster that must be stopped. I’m here to help people like me who want to ease away from impulsive and seemingly “uncontrollable” habits of consumption and replace them with intentional choices that promote sustainability.
Making long-lasting change first requires us to identify the root cause behind our patterned behaviors. So what is it that has conditioned us into a linear mindset and drives us into this cycle of purchase, use, dispose?
Talk to anyone in your social circle and most (if not all) will agree that “stuff just doesn’t last like it used to.” The unfortunate truth is that this is intentional for some companies in a strategy known as planned obsolescence. Whether it’s sub-par design, low-quality materials, or even software limitations, products are becoming more difficult and expensive to repair or necessary to replace after a short period of time. Companies argue that this strategy allows them to offer products at a lower cost to consumers, but it creates a mind-boggling amount of waste from discarded products and increases the total amount of money we have to spend on replacements.
I know this morally murky side of marketing better than most. Products are not just solutions to your immediate needs (ie. “I need an electric mixer because it’s easier to make cookies.”). Instead, companies position their products as the answers to your deepest fears and desires (ie, “With this electric mixer I can make the best cookies – then my family will love me and I won’t be alone anymore.”).
Read more from Boise State University on Subliminal Messaging in Advertising
It boils down to these essential triggers:
These emotional triggers are compounded by placing ads to appear when you are most susceptible to them – doom- or dream-scrolling through social media, during high-emotion tv shows, at the checkout aisle when your hunger cues are highest. It turns the choice to consume from one of practicality to one of survival necessity.
Then there’s also this age-old narrative that “new is better.” While we can’t say for certain where this phrase started, we can see it addressed throughout history and cultures. Regardless, there is an image that many companies cultivate that a new product is better than an old one merely because it is new (and then they run through the list of emotional triggers above to address the “why”).
If you’re feeling stuck in the cycle of make, take, waste, go easy on yourself. We’ve been programmed to behave this way either directly through short product lifespans or indirectly through illusions and emotional triggers.
There is a way to change your shopping habits without taking the “all or nothing” approach.
The biggest shift in our consumer behavior starts not with our wallets, but with our minds. When we view things as resources with lifecycles rather than disposable purchases, we’re more likely to choose products that last longer and are easier to repair. It stems from the questions, “How does this serve me?” and “For how long?”
What does a mindset of stewardship look like in action? You might be surprised by the simplicity of sustainable choices:
Honestly, this one can be the trickiest to follow. More industries are cutting down on quality to make their products more affordable, and putting them on instant purchase platforms making them more accessible than ever. This combination makes it easier for us to buy more while sticking us in the Frequent Replacement Purchases cycle.
To stick to this advice, it’s essential to set up boundaries:
Practice asking yourself the following questions the next time you’re thinking about buying something new:
Renting, borrowing, or sharing items is a legitimate alternative especially if you don’t think you’re going to need something more than once. If you’re like me and struggle to build community, start at your local public library. Librarians know all the great local places and online groups that help you save money or spend it in places that benefit the community.
Secondhand purchasing has also had a bit of a renaissance in the last few years, and it’s no wonder. People throw away all kinds of good-to-great quality items because, like everyone else, they’re stuck in that linear consumerism model. Not only can secondhand items save you money, their quality can be better than new because they’re tried and tested.
If an item that you currently own has legitimately reached the end of its life, recycle it responsibly. It’s easy to continue the mindset of disposable purchases when disposing of purchases is so convenient and forgettable. When you recycle something, that additional effort rewires your brain with a dopamine boost – you feel good about doing good and start noticing waste and its negative effects.
There’s something motivating about actually seeing your efforts pay off. Humans love feedback loops. Our brains crave proof that the work we’re doing matters. Tracking your impact, however casually, reinforces why you’re making these changes in the first place.
You don’t need a full spreadsheet or color-coded habit tracker (unless that’s your thing – looking at myself). It can be as simple as:
The goal isn’t perfection. It’s awareness. It’s learning to see the impact of your choices so the sustainable option feels worth choosing again next time.
And when the habit starts reinforcing itself, that’s when everything gets easier.
I can’t go this whole article for SHiFT® and not talk about the elephant in the garage. Of all the purchases we make, vehicles have some of the biggest environmental footprints – not just when we drive them, but in how they’re made and how we get rid of them.
A more sustainable approach isn’t about swearing off cars entirely. It’s being honest with yourself about what you need and what the planet can handle.
Two ways to bring stewardship into your relationship with your car/truck/motorcycle/RV:
Just like with household goods, maintenance is almost always more sustainable (and cheaper) than buying something new. A check engine light doesn’t automatically mean it’s time to trade up. A loose exhaust doesn’t make your car obsolete. When you think of your vehicle as something worth caring for — not just using until it breaks — you extend its useful life and delay the environmental cost of manufacturing a replacement.
This is the part that often gets overlooked. A car that’s no longer safe or useful doesn’t have to become waste. In fact, more than 80 percent of a vehicle is recyclable if handled by the right facility. But that only happens when the recycling is done correctly, not when a car is abandoned in a backyard or sold to the highest bidder with no environmental oversight.
Responsible auto recycling keeps hazardous fluids out of the soil and waterways, ensures metals and parts are recovered instead of discarded, and reduces the need for new resource extraction. It’s one of the most meaningful sustainability choices you can make because the impact is immediate and significant (not to mention better for your community, your space, and your peace of mind).
If you zoom out, all of these sustainable choices boil down to the same core idea: consumption doesn’t have to be mindless. We don’t have to keep sprinting on the treadmill of “more, more, more” just because it’s the track we were placed on.
And stewardship isn’t about deprivation or perfection. It’s about slowing down long enough to notice the path you’re on and decide whether it matches the life you actually want to build.
At the end of the day – whether that’s Black Friday or a random Friday in April – none of us are going to outsmart every marketing tactic or completely detach from a world built on consumption. And we don’t need to. What we can do is choose to move through the world with a little more intention, a little more awareness, and a little more care for the things we bring into our lives and the waste we leave behind. Sustainable choices aren’t about undoing the entire system. They’re about reclaiming a bit of agency within it. And if enough of us do that, the cumulative impact becomes something real. Something hopeful. Something better.
