Advertising Sheet for the Tungsram Light Bulb

In December 1924 lightbulb manufacturers met in Geneva for a conference that would leave a profound impact for decades to come by fixing the duration of lightbulbs at a standard 1000 hours, though long lifespans were technically possible. It included the European companies Osram from Germany, Phillips from the Netherlands, Tungsram from Hungary, and the American General Electric company. The cartel was called Phoebus and this small advertisement from Tungsram was produced in 1930, when the company was a member of the secretive group. 1. Simple advertising sheet, perhaps produced for a tram carriage advertising the double spiral lamp. A stylised letter D appears before a lamp with a spiral screw fitting, above the company name

Phoebus was an international organisation, working across borders, which caused the average life span of a light bulb to fall from between 1500 and 2000 hours to 1200 hours on average. Targets were set to meet this reduction and fines were levied with the group for those members that failed to meet them. To distract from the drop in longevity manufacturers promoted bulbs as burning considerably brighter than before. The result of this action was tens of millions more units sold while the price remained the same. In 1926 the members of the cartel sold 335.7 million bulbs combined. By 1930 that figure had risen to 420 million.

The object was acquired specifically for the Throwaway exhibition and has entered the permanent collection of the House of European History.

Despite its short duration (ending in 1940) Phoebus has become a symbol of the clandestine manipulation of consumers by producers in order to get them to buy more and, in turn, generate immense and often needless quantities of waste. As if to underline the deception inherent in the Phoebus project, a small number of pre-cartel lightbulbs are still in use and burning today, sometimes more than of 100 years after they were first switched on. A notable example is the Centennial Bulb at the Livermore firehouse in California that, at the time of writing, has burned more or less continuously since 1901.