Not Always Available. That Is Exactly What Makes It Desirable.

The original reason was practical: chocolate does not cope well with summer heat. And the cherries used in the praline are not available in the required quality all year round. What began as a production constraint has long since become something else: one of the oldest and most successful scarcity strategies in German brand history. Today, Ferrero actively fuels the hype around the product’s absence. The summer break has evolved from a disadvantage into part of the product itself.

At the same time, we are surrounded by messages such as: “Only 3 left in stock!” “Offer ends in 00:04:32.” “Limited edition, only while stocks last.”

The difference between these two forms of scarcity could hardly be greater.

Streaming has almost destroyed the seasonality of cinema. Platforms have eliminated one of retail’s natural constraints: limited shelf space. The result is permanent abundance, and no algorithm in the world can create lasting desire in the face of endless availability.

Consumers have learned that when everything is available at all times, availability itself loses its value as a signal. It is not “I can have it” that makes something desirable, but “I cannot have it right now, but I will be able to again soon.” Or: “I can have it, but not everywhere.”

Ana Andjelic put it pointedly on social media: “Being everywhere on social media actively undermines its desirability.” The consumers with the greatest spending power and cultural influence are leaving social media and moving into private communities, live events and physical retail. A brand that is present everywhere does not look present. It looks desperate.

Real scarcity has a reason that exists beyond the brand: seasonality, the availability of raw materials or limited craft capacity. Mon Chéri, asparagus and Oktoberfest beer. Consumers understand the reason and accept the limit as genuine. This creates a ritual: the return, the pleasure of reunion and the anticipation beforehand.

What happens in autumn when Mon Chéri returns to the shelves is telling. There are actual articles about it. People share photographs. Not only because a marketing team has orchestrated the moment, but because a genuine absence creates genuine joy when the product returns. That cannot be bought. It can only be earned through time, consistency and a product that truly justifies the wait.

Staged scarcity works in the right context. Supreme, Nike SNKRS, H&M’s designer collaborations and Burberry’s B Series all demonstrate how limited editions can create status, conversation and cultural relevance, provided the community accepts the race for the drop as part of the brand’s identity. It is a game that buyers knowingly choose to join.

The H&M collaborations follow a particular logic of their own. H&M does not possess the cultural capital that would justify scarcity, but Karl Lagerfeld, Balmain and Versace do. For a temporary offer, that is enough. But it does not scale.

What many brands overlook is that the drop is not the cause of the hype, but its expression. Beneath it lies cultural capital, either owned or borrowed. Without either, a “limited offer” is simply an offer that nobody wants.

False scarcity is what most people mean when they talk about scarcity marketing: countdown timers that reset when the page reloads. Stock levels that are always running low. “Today only” prices that are still available tomorrow.

The phenomenon has been documented systematically. Princeton researchers crawled 11,000 online stores and found 393 countdown timers. Of those, 157, around 40 per cent, could be technically identified as fake. They reset when the page was reloaded, or the advertised offer remained unchanged after the deadline had expired. In 2022, the US Federal Trade Commission officially classified such timers as a “dark pattern” and has since pursued them with fines. Once someone inspects the timer code and sees that it restarts with every visit, they are unlikely to believe anything else the brand says.

Presence does not automatically create desire. That is the uncomfortable message for anyone who believes visibility is the ultimate objective.

This does not mean communicating less. It means communicating more selectively, across channels, formats and moments. The difference is qualitative, not quantitative. People remember the brands that show up when it matters, not the brands that show up most often.

Absence only works, however, when the return is anticipated. That expectation cannot be imposed. It has to be earned over time, through consistency, through a product that justifies the wait and through a brand that does not contradict itself the moment commercial pressure increases.

Mon Chéri can afford its summer break because Ferrero has not broken the rule for seventy years, even though the commercial incentive to do so has always existed. The obvious suspicion is that the original technical reason, sensitivity to heat and unreliable cold chains, has long since become obsolete. Modern logistics can now maintain the cold chain with ease, even at the height of summer.

Ironically, the classic example of real scarcity is therefore no longer entirely real itself. Yet it still works, not despite this, but because seventy years of consistency have given Mon Chéri exactly what staged scarcity requires: cultural capital. Ferrero could probably maintain the break today even without the original technical justification, for the same reason that scarcity works for Supreme and Burberry.

The cinema industry is currently demonstrating the reverse side of the same lesson. Streaming and the pandemic had compressed the exclusive theatrical window from around 90 days to roughly 30. Audiences lost the reason to rush to the cinema rather than wait to watch the film at home.

At CinemaCon 2026, the major studios reversed course. Paramount moved back to 45 days of exclusivity, Universal will follow from 2027, and Disney has maintained a longer theatrical window since 2022. So far, summer 2026 is the highest-grossing cinema season since before the pandemic. An entire industry first had to abolish its own scarcity before realising that scarcity was part of what it was earning money from. Ferrero never had to learn that lesson.

Any brand that does not know whether anyone is waiting for its product should not experiment with scarcity. It should first understand why nobody is waiting.

Of the three forms of scarcity, only one has no expiry date: the real kind. Staged scarcity works for as long as the cultural capital lasts. False scarcity works until someone reads the code. Real scarcity works for as long as the product is worth going without, and that cannot be staged.

The real question is not how we create scarcity, but whether we have something worth waiting for.