Showing posts with label birthday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birthday. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Amazing Packaging - The Greatest Box Ever

This past Saturday was Claudia's birthday. She had indicated that she would really like a new watch to replace her older scratched up one, so this is just what I gave her.

We chose the watch together, since there are so many thousands of possibilities and I wanted to make sure she got something that was a style she would like, and after some shopping about, Claudia chose this one from Tissot. It is a nice classic style, not too flashy or crazy design wise, and I think it was a nice one.

However the box... the box is a masterpiece. I am a big fan of beautiful packaging, and this box is one of the best I have ever seen.

First of all, it is heavy. I am a person who thinks the weight of the packaging adds to the perceived value of the contents. Tissot certainly make nice watches, but this was not the most expensive thing out there, it is not like it was a Rolex, or Patek Philippe ha ha. I know there are plenty of Timex brand watches out there that are more expensive than this but certainly don't come in a box like this.
Just the centre red portion on the box opens on a nice stiff hinge. The inside is lined with a satin like fabric and the watch is presented on a little pillow. A nice touch is the watch-pillow has loops on the back that fit over small posts in the box to keep it from shifting around in transit. A small detail that I liked.
When closed, the reverse side of the box is dressed to look like books on a shelf, so I suppose it could be stored on a bookshelf and not look at all out of place.
In fact, the last compartment on the box is indeed two books.
One is a catalogue of the full Tissot line, the other is a little novel, "the story of a watch factory" which gives the history of the Tissot company.
The "novella" is just more marketing propaganda, but it is this kind of attention to detail and spend on marketing collateral that builds the brand image of Tissot. It is to give me the consumer a good feeling about the purchase and to sell me on the idea of the brand as a luxurious one. I certainly think it worked.

I am not sure I will actually trouble myself to read this (German) text, but I flipped through and even liked that the book is full of black and white photos and illustrations throughout.
I have no idea what the profit margins are on watches (I assume quite high,) however the money invested in packaging and other print material here had to eat into a significant chunk of it. I feel really good about this watch purchase and Tissot have immediatley bought my support as a future customer based on the care and attention the packaging received.

Oh, here is the watch close up. Happy Birthday Claudia.
I would one day like to have a look at the packaging and materials that comes with some other higher end watches. Anyone reading ever bought one and enjoyed it as much as I did here?

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Liam the Artist

For Liam's birthday, Aunt Shona gave him a kid's digital camera. It is this one from Fisher Price. Cousin Adam has a similar one and Liam had been going nuts for it during our visit. It is a pretty neat toy, a real digital camera (1.3mp) with a fixed focus lens and in a super durable body. I think the focus on this item is not on how fine a quality the images are so much as how much punishment the came
Although the package says this is for kids 4+, Liam had no trouble learning how to use it. I think he is still not totally sure about it, but he knows that when he presses the button, people go "in there" and he can look at them.

This toy is an absolute hit with Liam and he is still constantly carrying it around the house and yelling out things about "MY CAMERA"

I thought I would share some of Liam's greatest hits so far...

Here is an early self portrait. Very over exposed as a result of the flash going off 10cm from his face.
This one is called "view from the couch" and you can see it sort of captures myself and half of Claudia eating lunch.
This is more typical of his style, some would call it an attempt at macro photography, I just think it is up close and out of focus. I have named this one "portrait of a toy bucket"
Another study in the extreme close up. This one is "animal puzzle"
Here is "Laundry Time"
Here is "Mummy's Blurry Foot"
I helped on this one. Not my most flattering image, but not horrible either for a toy camera.
It is certainly better than the unassisted portraits, like "Headless Daddy #20"