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I'd argue that in Apple's case, a company with a (long) history, they could not afford not to focus on packaging while positioning themselves as the kind of bra

I'd argue that in Apple's case, a company with a (long) history, they could not afford not to focus on packaging while positioning themselves as the kind of brand they wanted to become. Higher stakes and with Google/Android a potentially dangerous competitor (whose strategy only became very evident later, ie. not wanting to compete on hardware as well). Now however, especially due to the profits they're making, they have little incentive to care about anything else but maintaining status. Why change something not visibly broken? I disagree that non-luxury packaging automatically means the company doesn't care about the product contained inside. It's a matter of strategy & costs. I'm not familiar with HP packaging, but you should know that ASUS does offer luxury packaging for its gaming range of products for instance, especially laptops. My opinion is that it's possible to design thoughtful, non-generic packaging without crossing into luxury materials territory. Experience and loads of creativity are required though. At least this is what I understood from the article (taking into account the Pencil example as well), that startups should bet on resourcefulness instead of throwing money in non-priority directions. Another aspect to consider: I don't have the specific numbers to back this up, but we live in a world where the general trend is towards minimalism and simplifying our lives, which includes getting rid of no longer necessary stuff, such as a product's temporary home (packaging). Considering it has such a short life, it makes little sense to invest a lot of resources into packaging as a startup, unless you're selling electronics, where at least some consumers have a habit of saving the packaging materials to increase resale value of the product when they decide to upgrade.

beat 12y ago
Refined doesn't necessarily mean expensive. This reminds me of my favorite love-to-hate restaurant, the Crave chain (dunno if they're national or regional). They're the masters of putting expensive-sounding, fancy ingredients into truly bland, pedestrian food. The marketing goal is to make people with no taste think they're eating more upscale than they actually are. Meanwhile, my town is filled with little ethnic restaurants that don't serve bragworthy ingredients, but instead conjure magical flavors through their exquisite attention to detail. So yeah, a company could package very simply, in an environmentally sound manner, and still make the unwrapping itself a positive aesthetic experience, rather than just an inconvenience on the way to using the product. Apple could do that as well. They probably will do that, if they start seeing a more positive RoI in simple rather than elaborate packaging. But they'll still do it with the same obvious attention to detail. So I should have been more clear... it's not non-luxury packaging that makes me distrust a maker. It's careless packaging, or packaging where the attention to detail is clearly focused on reducing cost (or worse, theft) rather than my experience as a consumer. The packaging has a customer. Who's the customer? The end user, or the accountants?
jameshart 12y ago
I'm not sure what you mean by "(Apple) could not afford not to focus on packaging while positioning themselves as the kind of brand they wanted to become" When do you perceive that Apple decided to become the kind of brand that focused on its packaging? Because I'm going to say I think Apple have ALWAYS had a weird interest in packaging. You go back to the Mac Plus, it shipped in a glossy white box with full four-color printing on the sides showing a happy mac and a huge Apple logo, with all the components beautifully subpackaged up inside. That was not the norm in the 1980s (I've still got, for example, an Atari ST in its original box and it was matte white with blue printing all over, mostly shipping codes and handle with care signage). This is a company which, remember, had the signatures of every designer of the original mac molded onto the inside surface of the case.

beat 12y ago

Refined doesn't necessarily mean expensive. This reminds me of my favorite love-to-hate restaurant, the Crave chain (dunno if they're national or regional). They're the masters of putting expensive-sounding, fancy ingredients into truly bland, pedestrian food. The marketing goal is to make people with no taste think they're eating more upscale than they actually are. Meanwhile, my town is filled with little ethnic restaurants that don't serve bragworthy ingredients, but instead conjure magical flavors through their exquisite attention to detail. So yeah, a company could package very simply, in an environmentally sound manner, and still make the unwrapping itself a positive aesthetic experience, rather than just an inconvenience on the way to using the product. Apple could do that as well. They probably will do that, if they start seeing a more positive RoI in simple rather than elaborate packaging. But they'll still do it with the same obvious attention to detail. So I should have been more clear... it's not non-luxury packaging that makes me distrust a maker. It's careless packaging, or packaging where the attention to detail is clearly focused on reducing cost (or worse, theft) rather than my experience as a consumer. The packaging has a customer. Who's the customer? The end user, or the accountants?

jameshart 12y ago

I'm not sure what you mean by "(Apple) could not afford not to focus on packaging while positioning themselves as the kind of brand they wanted to become" When do you perceive that Apple decided to become the kind of brand that focused on its packaging? Because I'm going to say I think Apple have ALWAYS had a weird interest in packaging. You go back to the Mac Plus, it shipped in a glossy white box with full four-color printing on the sides showing a happy mac and a huge Apple logo, with all the components beautifully subpackaged up inside. That was not the norm in the 1980s (I've still got, for example, an Atari ST in its original box and it was matte white with blue printing all over, mostly shipping codes and handle with care signage). This is a company which, remember, had the signatures of every designer of the original mac molded onto the inside surface of the case.