How Packaging Plus Promotion Equals Profit

I have had this discussion before. You might remember it. Let me try again.

“All you need is good content. Content is king. Write good stuff and the visitors will come”

“Ugly sells”

“Don’t judge a book by its cover”.

Yeah, right.

We think we buy products but what do we actually buy?

Packaging. Promotion.

We tell ourselves we just want the product but we buy packaging and promotion all the time.

Does that t-shirt with the logo really provide more value than the t-shirt without?

Imagine two breakfast cereal boxes, the store brand and the name brand, one has a dowdy, functional design and the other has a wild cartoon theme in garish colours – which is the kid going beg his mom for?

Picture two businessmen, one is tall, got good hair, nice sharp tailored suit. Clean nails, shiny shoes. The other is in overalls, a bit tubby, grease down his greying shirt, over his hands and face, looks like he cuts his own hair. Which is the CEO? You know rationally they could well both be or neither, but if you had to place a bet …?

As human beings we use visual signals to make snap decisions. We are bombarded with information so we use crude filters to chunk the masses of information into managable bites. Biases, prejudices, correlations, stereotypes and approximations proxy for investigation and research. The taller candidate with the good hair becomes president.

Packaging combines design with convenience. We choose the choice with the better packaging instinctively.

What happened to “Content is King”?

Well consider this; what is a King? A King is just a man. Without the crown and an army he is no different to any other. Swords and gold make kings, not genes. Packaging and promotion.