“It has no production values, no nudity, and no laughs, and yet a three-minute silent video of a man opening a cardboard box has been watched online by almost half a million YouTube users. Why? Because inside the box, swaddled in plastic and polystyrene, is a brand new Apple MacBook Air; and because it’s a particularly popular example of one of the internet’s oddest video sharing crazes: unboxing,” Tim Walker reports for The Independent.
“Apple’s classic packaging design makes it the unboxing market leader, but Martin Lindstrom, author of Buyology: How Everything We Believe About Why We Buy Is Wrong, cautions against crediting the company with originating the trend,” Walker reports. “‘Apple adapts a message very cleverly, about five minutes before it breaks through, and I have great respect for that. They’ve done it with packaging design, too, but in Japan you could have seen beautiful concept packaging design as long ago as the Seventies. It also appeared in the fashion and perfume industries long before Apple went into it.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Nothing in Lindstrom’s statement disproves that Apple products did not originate “unboxing” videos online. Probably because they did. Yes, other companies have done beautiful packaging for decades (as has Apple), but – until or unless we’re proven wrong – ’twas Apple products started the trend of online unboxing videos by fans. We’ve been watching them for years and, until just a year or two ago, the only unboxing videos we ever saw for many years prior were of Apple products. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it (we’ll revise this take if proven wrong).
Walker continues, “Apple and its rivals have made unboxing a mainstream pursuit, but they’ll have to be careful: if too many of us discover that we can just stay in and watch a video, will we still bother to buy the company’s beautiful gadgets?”
MacDailyNews Take: Uh, yes.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “James W.” for the heads up.]