The experience of opening the box is just as much a part of marketing as the graphics on the box. Apple knows this, as we appreciate whenever we open a new iPhone or Mac. Opening the box is our first introduction to the product and Apple thinks through every detail of that process.
I recently bought a printer that reminded me that the box opening experience is often overlooked. I spent a full hour trying to get a new printer to work on my network. The startup guide didn’t help, so I googled the problem and found dozens of posts from people complaining about the same issue. Finally I found one consumer nice enough to provide a simple solution. It would have been easy for the brand to include that same solution in the box (or at least post it on their website), but they didn’t. As a result, when I think of that brand, I think of the 60 minutes I spent troubleshooting their new product, not the 30 seconds of their latest ad.
Many brands fumble the box opening moment, but it can be an opportunity to shine if you make it memorable. A couple years ago, I was in charge of launching a new mop kit from Method. We thought through the whole box opening experience and decided to have fun with the manual. Riffing on the adage of “floors so clean, you can eat off them”, we included a book of recipes in the mop kit instructions that could be prepared and served literally on the floor, such as “Braised Chicken on Terracota Tile” and “Linguini on Hardwood”. The recipes included Gourmet-style photography of the meals served on floor surfaces next to sofa legs. You might question the ROI of creating a recipe book. But to us, it was free media.
There are whole websites dedicated to “unboxing”. They feature two-minute long videos of consumers slowly opening high-tech products (the Independent describes unboxing as “geek porn“). Not everyone is creepy enough to film it, but consumers do pay attention to the experience of opening the box. For marketers, unboxing is an opportunity to create talk value.
The best example of the box opening marketing I’ve seen is the Mini Cooper Unofficial Owner’s Manual. It includes tips on everything from back-seat driving to flirting to unconventional uses of headlamps. Finding that manual in the glove box is media you’d remember.
(Marketoonist Monday: I’m giving away a signed print of this week’s cartoon. Just share an insightful comment to this week’s post. I’ll pick one comment by 5:00 PST on Monday. Thanks!)
Hugh says
The personal experience of “Opening the Box” tells me so much about the company involved because their packaging ethos communicates everything you need to know about customer experience, attention to detail, innovation, creativity as well as other important indicators. It is also an unrivalled opportunity for a company to connect their brand to the sometimes powerful emotions of opening and owning a valued product.
It seems to me the ‘opening the box’ moment is at least a little bit like the (apocryphal?) imprinting that takes place when a chick hatches. If we experience frustration, difficult and stupid design when we unbox a product and bring it into our world – that experience indelibly imprints itself on our perceptions of the product and not just the packaging. Conversely, an innovative, clever or otherwise virtuous use of packaging leaves a positive imprint and transfers those values to the product they carry.
Mary L. Cole (@euonymous) says
These opening the box moments are particularly annoying, probably because I started my professional life as a tech writer with a teaching certificate. I was actually quite good at it, introducing a number of techie tools now considered commonplace, such as a Bacchus-Naur computer language summary. It is interesting that a company will test a commercial on a focus group, but not test their manuals on a new user group. Even the brief “start up” guides are often not what they could be. Having agreed with you 1000% in general, I must also describe the BEST “open the box” experience ever… and that was the original Apple Mac computer. I will never forget their perfectly effective approach to teaching the Mac usage paradigm. To this day that is my standard of user guide excellence.
Rich Binell says
At Apple, it’s called The Out of Box Experience.
At least it used to be, when I worked there one million years ago.
So.
There was a time when Apple wasn’t quite so good at this.
This was during, what we Apple Veterans now call “The Occupation.”
It was the interregnum between the Old Steve Jobs and the New Steve Jobs, when a few of the faithful were left to carry the torch for quality, good design, and good sense.
The original Macintosh package had set the standard for The Out-of-Box Experience.
But, there was a time during The Occupation, when different factions (product teams, software teams, accessory/peripherals teams, user experience teams, etc.), used to compete to get their “thing” noticed first in the box.
This time was also notable because no one was in charge of The Out-of-Box Experience.
There was one notable and hilarious (to some) moment when two different boxes inside your new Macintosh box both said “Open Me First.”
Experience is a wonderful thing.
If you want a great Out-of-Box Experience for your customers, you have to do more than talk about it.
Turns out you have to put someone in charge of it.
Martin Chillcott says
Why do I buy Dell Computers when we need a new one for business or family? Becuase they were the first company to provide instructions in English that I could understand, in an easy to follow order and with a helpful diagram “Put green jack plug into green jack hole, put purple jack …..etc etc. I have no idea (or interst) whether they have an enhanced discombobulator or a 3rd generation integrated frenzomteric package. Its simple to set up and it works
Mico says
I don’t read manuals as I never outgrew tearing the box and digging right into the product…until I needed more guidance.
Products should be dummy-proof and user friendly so consumers would not even need to defer to manuals, guides, and video demos. Let’s all save the trees here.
In reality, not a lot of products are dummy-proof as you and I experience with some tech gadgets. So we defer to the “start guides”, in hope for an abridged version of the manuals. Apple clearly understands the value of dummy-proof technology.
Then again, I would like to believe that “start guides” helped but again maybe not. It depends whether the start guide is user-friendly, otherwise it defeats the purpose. Creating a “start guide” is an art, it should be succint, a delicate balance of understandable images and text.
tomfishburne says
Great perspective from everyone, thanks!
This week’s cartoon goes to Rich for illustrating the history of The Out of Body Experience at Apple and the insight that they ultimately had to put one person in charge of it. The story of two components saying “Open Me First” is hysterical, and so telling.
I agree with Hugh too, that our first experience with a product is like “imprinting”.