Month: February 2011

This habit of buying products I have no real need for.

Case in point: this box of tea that just happens to be in my possession after today’s shift at Chapters.

The packaging really caught my eye. Especially the folder like string tie used to close the box! And the wonderful paperlike, vintage style quality of the box itself. It feels like something that would be used during the early 1900’s, on a boat like the Titanic.

Never mind the fact that I have no use for tea given the fact that my parents have our cupboard routinely stocked with various tea (Chinese tea and the standard Tetley brand).

Other things I have purchased in the past include greeting cards with nice boxes, various notebooks with nice covers, and even cd’s that have unique covers. I don’t have a use for many of them, I buy them solely because:

a) the packaging design is nice or

b) the item itself is nice

Like earlier classes mentioned, packaging pays an important role of fulfilling their functions (keeping food safe for example) as well as catching the eyes of consumers. These objects and the companies behind them has certainly succeeded in the area of catching MY eyes. Their prices are usually never low (nicely packaged items tend to be more ‘luxurious’ and costly as of result) which makes it even more astounding that I would pay for these things.

However, they do provide me with some sort of benefit, otherwise I would never have traded in hard earned cash for them in the first place. I believe that one reason why I buy them is because of the feeling they give me. The feeling that comes from the knowledge that I am lucky enough to be have the money to spend, how nicely designed products make me feel “cooler” than buying boring ‘economy’ products and the fact that after I’m done using the item (drinking the tea, sending out cards) I can use the boxes and packaging to store trinkets and display proudly on my desk.

Mr. Steven Smith describes it rather well in this video interview: “It’s packaging that stops you in the aisle, it’s packaging that, when you’re ten, fifteen, twenty feet away, and you look down the aisle you can see a different block of products. Once you’ve got them to look and if you can get them to grab the package, we’ve got you.”

He has definitely got me and now I’m off to try a cup of tea. Hopefully the taste will give me more reason to buy more of these delightful little boxes.

Wow.

It’s really quite hard to believe that one year has already past since the Winter Olympics last came to town and took over the hearts of all Vancouverites. I can still feel the energy thrumming in the air; I can still remember walking downtown at night and soaking in the atmosphere, the pride for our Canadian athletes.

The last weekend saw Robson Street and Granville Street closed to celebrate the one year anniversary. And even though it just wasn’t the same as 2010, the crowds were aplenty.

What helped to create buzz for the event?

I believe that Twitter, word of mouth, radio and the longing for the Olympic experience played a large part. All throughout the week leading up to the “Relive” event, I heard radio ads, I saw bands Tweeting that they were going to be playing, and certain Vancouver based blogs and Vancouver Tourism trying to add in some interactivity with facebook and twitter games. For example, if you tweeted something with the hashtag #relivedowntown, the tweet would show up on a projector on Granville Street.

It helps that I have a RSS feed that aggregates all my blogs and facebook invites for me.

Also, while walking around downtown, I also grabbed a lot of free swag. One set of freebies particularly stood out for me.

The website links to Canada Tourism’s Facebook page where for every ‘like’  they receive on their page, $1 goes to Canadian athletes. I thought this was a very nice way of promoting Canada and it’s athletes by capitalizing on the Relive Olympics weekend and the social-media savvy population. Nearly everyone is on Facebook these days, and people don’t mind doing something as easy as just liking a page for a good cause.

The foam finger like was extremely popular, and nearly everyone on the streets had one at some point. The facebook ‘like’ stickers are even better as there are many times when one comes across something that they like. Giving these  stickers not only adds value for whoever owns and uses them, the stickers also provide free promotion for Canada Tourism and hopefully more traffic to their facebook page.

Hopefully more of these stickers will turn up around the city. And who knows, maybe the sticker you see on a particularly funny bus ad will be mine. 🙂

…I really do love thee.

I’m sure most of the younger population and general tech savvy people have heard of Groupon and all the other group buying coupon websites (such as Living Social and Team Buy). For those who have never heard of this company though, Groupon’s premise is simple: they offer daily deals that let you save anywhere from 50-90% off a certain company’s goods. You pay upfront for the deal, say $15 for $30 worth of food at a restaurant, and then you redeem your voucher later on. It’s money saving at it’s best, but what really makes Groupon and other coupon sites so popular with both the consumers and local businesses?

At the heart of it all, Groupon acts just like a regular coupon or sale. Consumers are attracted to saving money and they buy the deal, thus saving money. What the businesses hope is that after the consumers redeem their vouchers, they will become loyal customers, or at the very least, like the product/service enough to keep the company in the back of their mind. It helps that once a deal is “tipped”, or once enough people buy the deal, the money is charged regardless of whether they redeem the deal or not. This “tipping” mechanism helps to ensure that the business will have a guaranteed amount of coupons bought.

One major difference between Groupon and normal coupons is the fact that there is a time limit; you usually only have one day to buy the coupon of the day. This sense of urgency helps to push people into buying the deal and redeeming it since they spent money already, as opposed to someone receiving a coupon in the mail and just keeping it in the wallet until they think of the company. Furthermore, Groupon is an online e-commerce site, with an Iphone app and Android app. For today’s tech savvy population, instant gratification is key, the faster people can have access to deals, the more likely they will use it. Think, when was the last time you took the effort to clip out a newspaper coupon and redeem it in store?

I personally love this site, it has helped me find the most amazing restaurants around town. Just recently, I redeemed a voucher for brunch at La Brasserie and it has become one of my favourite places to eat at. Even though I have been meaning to visit this restaurant for a while, without Groupon, I would have never had extra “push” to eat at this place, and I would have never become an advocate of it.
As of result: I win, La Brasserie wins and Groupon wins.