The packaging of your product conveys a lot more about your brand than you think! It tells a story, builds a connection with the brand, and of course, influences your choice to purchase a product. Here is a brilliant read on Apple’s packaging strategy that will help you understand the importance of packaging in building a successful cultural brand.
The psychology of Apple packaging
If you own Apple products, there’s a high likelihood that a corner of your closet is dedicated to Apple boxes.
Why do I collect them? Because they’re frickin’ beautiful and the resale value for Apple products is much higher on Craigslist with a box.
Or at least that’s what I tell myself. I don’t usually re-sell my Apple products. The boxes pile up and taunt me. I can’t shake them and I’m clearly not the only person with this affliction.
The affinity we have for Apple boxes is not random. It comes from a deep understanding of human psychology. As Walter Isaacson wrote in his Steve Jobs biography, beautiful packaging is one of Apple’s key marketing principles (bold mine):
‘The Apple Marketing Philosophy’…stressed three points:
- The first was empathy, an intimate connection with the feelings of the customer: “We will truly understand their needs better than any other company.”
- The second was focus: “In order to do a good job of those things that we decide to do, we must eliminate all of the unimportant opportunities.”
- The third and equally important principle, awkwardly named, was impute. It emphasized that people form an opinion about a company or product based on the signals that it conveys. “People DO judge a book by its cover,” he wrote. “We may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software etc.; if we present them in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities.”
Read the full article here, written by Trung Phan for his weekly newsletter SatPost
