I’m a firm believer that packaging that promotes a product should deliver on the intent of the product and that the medium used should be chosen well. I recently had an experience that wasn’t the best. A little background. One of my biggest commitments this year in the knitting/technical-editing realm is the Nihon Vogue course. I’m closing in on year one and will start year two September 2010. It’s been a wonderful course and learning experience. It’s also led to me being interested in and using Japanese stitch dictionaries, which at times can be a bit confusing (it’s the symbols). I recently found some DVD’s at an LYS in San Francisco and thought – brilliant I’ll be able to resource these stitches and subsequent meaning via a DVD while traveling.
The DVD is not usable. I was not amused. Especially after I had paid $24.00 for the set. And I paraphrase (from the original source), “I thought the DVD would be a cool way to print the material. However, it’s not a usable DVD…” Which means its use is zero, at a value of $24.00.
Japanese Symbols
What would have been even cleverer would be to actually place the PDF of the symbols and English on the DVD with accompanying videos of the techniques to symbols. That I would have paid the ~$12.00 for each DVD.
The moral of the story? Really think about the packaging. It may be a cool idea, but will it deceive the buyer. Or clearly sate that something isn’t what it might be perceived as, but a clever play on an idea. Ultimately, use the right medium to package and make sure to include value for the price you charge. In this case, one couldn’t determine that the DVD’s weren’t usable due to packaging. It was only after it was opened that it was apparent.
Disclaimer. I have not named the person behind the packaging as I don’t think that’s appropriate.