Why the future belongs to life-centered design

At air up, we don’t want to persuade or force people to adopt a certain way of life. Instead, we want to inspire a healthy and sustainable lifestyle. Simply said: we want to make a healthy and sustainable lifestyle the most attractive choice. But isn’t this easier said than done? In theory, most people know quite well what would be best to do - be it for their health or for the environment - but reality shows the discrepancy quite clearly. Just two examples: It’s been known for years that our diet contributes to climate change. Studies show that every European is producing on average over 30 kg of plastic every year. And people are not only treating their environment badly: every German alone consumes approximately 36 kg sugar per year - in the US it’s even almost 60 kg. Five of the ten deadliest diseases worldwide like diabetes, ischemic heart diseases or strokes are due to increased sugar consumption.

According to this discrepancy: wouldn't it be as morally great as it would be economically kamikaze - especially for a young start-up - to be built on a product that puts health and sustainability in the focus? In theory a great idea but in reality a slow seller? My clear answer is “no”! Not if you create a product that offers solutions for our health and our environment, without sacrificing our needs and desires.

Even though me and my today’s co-founder Tim didn’t think about a successful business model when we created the first air up prototype as our Bachelor thesis, we knew that we didn’t want to design the one-millionth spoon or toothbrush. Our goal was to create a product that goes beyond the so-far usual user-respectively human-centered design to life-centered design. But ...

...what does that mean?

User- or human-centered design focuses on just one factor: the user respectively human being. And one question: what needs do I have to meet with my design to appeal to them? For decades this has been the motor for successfully designed brands and products of all kinds. Simply said: products should please people, simplify their lives and offer them added value. Often, however, this added value is only supposed or short-term and ignores other aspects of life.

In contrast, life-centered design focuses less on ‘me’ than on ‘us’. This concept is inspired by the theory of the author John Thackara, according to which one does not develop for the life of an individual, but for the “entire life”, for example for our planet and for our health. As mentioned before, product development has so far focused primarily on people. But it has to understand them as part of a larger ecosystem - and not as its center. For that to happen, we need to adopt a broader, more holistic mindset. I strongly believe that in the future it will be crucial for product development to take into account both personal and collective values. And that it is essential for the economic success of these products to offer a solution for the cognitive dissonance of the consumers.

What is cognitive dissonance?

That’s the scientific term for a negative emotional state which is triggered by mismatched, contradictory, or even mutually exclusive perceptions or insights. These can be conflicting beliefs, feelings, ideas, behaviors, desires, goals, attitudes, opinions, intentions, or thoughts. One example is cognitive dissonance, which scratches one's self-image. For example, if you decide to live healthier, eat less sugary, pay more attention to the environment, or consume more sustainably. If this - which unfortunately often happens, be it due to a lack of discipline (couch wins over running) or because one gives in to temptation (lemonade wins over water) - does not work out, a gap arises between the positive self-image and reality. And that in turn creates negative feelings and self-dissatisfaction. 

How can cognitive dissonance be solved?

Cognitive dissonance can be solved when overcoming the discrepancy between your beliefs and your actions. For this you can either: 

1. Change your perceptions

As an example: Your plan was to consume less sugar because you know that it has a bad influence on your health but you just cannot resist tasty juices and lemonades. You might decide for yourself that sugar is maybe not that bad in the end (even though it is of course). 

2. Change your behavior 

To stay with this example you can of course just stop drinking soft drinks and replace them with water. But we all know that this is easier said than done. For most people, a nice ice tea or Kola is more delicious and attractive than pure water. So changing actions often go hand in hand with renunciation.

3. Change the way you perceive your behavior

When it comes to your sugar consumption you could be gracious to your actions - you love sugary drinks but it could be worse, no? At least you’re not having cake for breakfast, ice cream for lunch, and Mousse au Chocolate for dinner. But unfortunately, this doesn’t solve the problem that you wanted to limit your actual amount of sugar, not the potential.

So in my opinion, the best way to solve cognitive dissonance would be to try to solve the underlying problem and to ...

4. … find a practical solution to lower the tension between your beliefs and your actions

Ideally, there already exists a solution or product that supports you in this way. Where there is none, there is a need and great opportunity for innovations and new technologies to fill this gap. And this is where life-centered design comes into play.

There is a great market potential for life-centered design and products, that provide a solution to cognitive dissonance

Products that are created under the premise of life-centered design have the ability to create a guilt-free customer experience. Current trend studies show that millennials and GenZ, in particular, are applying new evaluation criteria to products and brands: Trust and transparency play a major role, and there are increasing demands on topics such as sustainability, animal welfare, equality, diversity, human rights, and health. Especially the younger generation is increasingly buying reusable products or products that create real added value, not only to their lives but also to their ecosystem. They expect a product that not only benefits them but also gives them a good feeling, taking into account the compromise between desire and convenience. Products and brands should offer them a solution to solve their cognitive dissonance - without forcing them to do so.

How air up solves cognitive dissonance OR Why air up is a perfect proof for the success of life-centered design

With air up we channel cognitive dissonance as a kind of ‘permission’ - we show that it’s ok to stay the way you are while reducing your emotional friction. Our drinking bottle system even focuses on two aspects: health and sustainability.

1. Health

The dissonance: Many people drink too little water, but tons of soft drinks and sugary juices instead. Alone in the US, one-third of all adolescents do not consume water in its pure form on a regular day. Every fourth German under 40 consumes soft drinks on a daily basis. This consumer behavior increases the risk of many different diseases like diabetes or ischemic heart diseases. Even sugar substitutes do not offer any health benefits due to the empty calories and harmful additives. Despite most people know that beverages containing sugar are harmful to health, with their interesting, various tastes they are more tempting and attractive than pure water. 

The solution: With air up we offer all the benefits of water, enriched with taste, as our worldwide unique drinking bottle system flavors water by scent only. No sugar, no calories, no unhealthy additives. Just taste and pure water! The scent pods that provide the fragrance are only made of natural aromas, extracted from fruits, plants, and spices. Each scent pod is carefully crafted with a blend of aromas to offer a full taste experience.

 Result: You drink more healthy water because you don’t have to sacrifice taste.

2. Sustainability

The dissonance: A majority of people recognize global warming as one of the biggest problems of our time and one contributor is a large amount of plastic. As mentioned above, alone every European is producing on average over 30 kg of plastic every year. Soft drinks in PET bottles and bottled water contribute a large part to this and many countries don’t even have a good recycling system.  

The solution: The air up bottle is refillable and our scent pods are lightweight and 100% recyclable. As a result, it uses much less plastic and produces significantly fewer CO2 emissions than other drinking products. Also, we recommend to use regular tap water for our drinking system, so you’re not only saving PET bottles by not buying soft drinks but also because they use precious water from the existing water infrastructure.

Result: You save plastic made from PET bottles and consume more sustainably.

The following impressive figures show that we are on the right track with air up. And they are valid evidence of the market potential of life-centered design – of clever innovations, products, and technologies that offer solutions for our health and environment, without sacrificing our needs and desires: 

• Within just one year we have sold over 400,000 drinking bottle systems, which means that we were able to save almost 15 million 1-liters -PET bottles and more than 400 tons of sugar (compared to flavored water). 
• Our start-up has grown from 7 to over 70 employees.  
• air up is rated in the 8-digit range
• The investment volume consists of a high 7-digit amount 
• Well-known investors such as Frank Thelen, Ralf Dümmel, and Christoph Miller are supporting us from the start.
• After having a rocket launch in the DACH market, we have now expanded our brand to other European markets such as France and soon the Netherlands and Belgium. 

And that’s just the beginning!