IMS_Blog

Apparently the wonderful UK government is now considering increasing taxes on the humble light bulb in an effort to increase the uptake of energy efficient versions. Whilst the government’s intention (reduce energy consumption) must be applauded if they were really serious they ought to approach this from the other direction—subsidise the energy efficient version so that they become as stupidly cheap as the normal 99p for a box filament version. That way everyone could still easily afford to have a light (neglecting the cost of electricity to run it of course). However, that’s not my main point. I can give them a much simpler way to boost the sales. Make them look like light bulbs. Have a look at filament verses energy efficient “bulbs” (the only place I could think of off the top of my head that turned out to have actual pictures was title=”Homebase: Lightbulbs”>Homebase). Now it’s my general experience that what you tend to get are the funny stick things which look like some alien has decorated your lamp. I notice there do now appear to be ones trying to mimic their filament cousins but just compare the two versions for a moment. They’re just not the same. They don’t have the “bulbiness” of the name. And the shape is ingrained on peoples conciousness. In fact, decades worth of lamps and lighting have been designed to work well with the standard bulb shape. Anything which isn’t that shape just doesn’t look right in some fittings (for good reason—it’s not right). Then you have to have the clear verses perl choice (it effects the quality—in the sort of way photographers and artists would talk about it—of the light from the bulb). Get that right, and people might actually want the things when given an equal price comparison, or even perhaps before then.