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Packaging As a Media Type?

 

Last Friday night was a big day around the Berg household – semester grades for my 2nd grader. I have a deal with my daughter that for every “A” she gets I’ll give her $5. Her goal with raking in all this cash has been to purchase an iPod Mini. Well her hard work paid off – straight A’s for the semester, which cost me another cool $50 and gave her enough money to buy the iPod.

So off we went to purchase her iPod at the local Apple store. She got a silver mini which I expected to be packed in a large box, along with all the manuals, headphones, extra marketing stuff, etc. Instead, it was in a very small plastic box about 5-6 inches long and 1 inch thick. I asked the clerk “is this everything?” He assured me it was.

Next step, opening the contents. So we opened the hermitically sealed container and we were pleasantly surprised that….

  1. Everything was in the case – headphones, connection cable, the mini as well as the instructions and legal mumbo/jumbo.
  2. The instructions were so easy to read (lot’s of pictures/few words) that even I could setup the iPod.
  3. We can actually store the case in a drawer vs. having to lug a box up to the attick.

I was actually hoping that there might be some additional information on other products available for the mini or other Apple devices – but the company relies on consumers to go to the popular iTunes web site to get such information.

So it got me thinking, how could we use packaging as a media type to convey particular messages to an audience or does it work at all? My daughter and I certainly had a great experience with the iPod Mini which certainly helps support the brand…

What unique packaging experiences have you had? And, what ideas do you have for packaging?

Regards,

Scott

Posted 01-08-2007 3:25 PM by Scott Berg

Comments

afunkhauser wrote New Packaging
on 02-06-2007 7:42 PM
Dear Scott, I too have had great "out of the box experience with Apple. I received their video 60 GB ipod last year as a Christmas gift and I still have the box. The graphics and print quality of the packaging were very high quality which made the experience of buying and opening the product much more exciting and special. I work for a marketing agency and we have worked closely with technology companies to provide a better "out of box" experience. This is now something that companies need to think about when trying to promote their brand. Most consumers do judge the book by it's cover, therefore making the best box for the product does give the consumer a better feel about the look, reliability, and dependability of a company. One day I was brainstorming about ways to attract people to you product by it's packaging, and I came up with the idea of having the box greet you as it was opened. This thought stemmed from the new Hallmark cards that have songs and dialogue play as part of the punch line to the card. If you have ever seen on of these cards, you would know the device that plays this music is about the size of a nickel and weights no more than a few ounces. I figured that this device could be added to the box on one side and could say a various amount of things; from applause to saying "thank you for purchasing so and so." I believe that this would really get people talking. Such as "hey, I got a new computer and when I opened up the box, it talked. You got to check it out!" I think that more companies need to understand the importance of the packaging like Apple did and make a better purchasing experience for everyone.
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