How Does Your Packaging Compare?
One of the key lessons in the Walter Isaacson’s book, Steve Jobs, is the passionate attention and priority Jobs gave to design, even to the point where design considerations often over-ruled engineering constraints (frequently obliterating them).
As recounted by Isaacson (p. 78), Jobs’ first mentor and investor, Mike Markkula, boiled the Apple marketing philosophy down to three words — empathy (with the customer), focus, and a principle he termed “impute”. He wrote: “People DO judge a book by its cover. 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.”
Boy did Jobs take that principle to heart!
On page 347, Isaacson describes how Jobs and his design chief and soul-mate, Jony Ive, obsessed over and even patented the packaging for various Apple products. The packaging had to signal that there was a gem waiting inside.
Says Ive: “Steve and I spent a lot of time on packaging. I love the process of unpacking something. You design a ritual of unpacking to make the product feel special. Packaging can be theater, it can create a story.”
Think about that the next time you’re tempted to give only glancing attention to your organization’s ‘packaging’. From your office to your annual report to your homepage … right down to — and maybe most importantly for fundraisers — your direct mail carriers.
I don’t want to overdo the point, but does your packaging suggest there’s something special inside?
Tom
P.S. In fact, although ‘design’ permeates the entire book, anyone involved in marketing and the creative process would benefit in particular from a re-read of Chapter 26, “Design Principles”.
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