Whether we like it or not, the way that something is presented drastically shapes our perception of it. The package that something comes wrapped in can extend or inhibit the influence and impact it has on our lives and our society.
This is why marketers and designers collaborate and work so hard to provide an attractive and compelling interface with a product or service at every contact point between a company and a consumer. It’s not just about “pretty” packaging, either; it’s about the whole experience – efficiency, usability, sustainability, integrity, honesty. An entire environment must be beautifully crafted so that it’s not just another product on the shelf or just another site on the Web.
It seems superficial to care so much about presentation, but it is actually a necessity in order to increase impact. Think about it. If there is no channel or skin or representation of something that we want to better understand the value of, then we will likely never try it out. And that reality goes far beyond consumer decision-making.
It’s true for ideas as well.
Innovations and brand new ways of thinking need channels to flow through that will help our culture better understand them. Brilliant ideas will never get anywhere without vehicles of change to package and present them to the world. Within the realm of social innovation, ideas need incarnation: people to become the examples of what change could look like.
Incarnate new ideas. Exemplify change. Cause the world to look at what you are doing for others and want to join in the effort with you.
