One foot in the future

At half-past ten on Saturday morning, a knock at the door heralded the arrival of my Matter Box.

I’d signed up last week, knowing I was well past the deadline to receive the first box, and wasn’t expecting anything to happen for a while. I was wrong. It turned up on time, as promised, so lets see what all the fuss is about…

In a recent link round up post on Roo Reynolds blog, he mentioned that he’d signed up for something called “Matter”, and the brief description intrigued me enough to want to know more. I followed the link to the Matter website where their copy said:

Matter is a box full of interesting stuff–a way for companies to talk to people by giving them things.

 

Matter works a little like a magazine by creating specific boxes for different audiences, except each bit of ‘content’ is in fact a different object each created by a different company. Matter works with each company to create items you’ll enjoy getting, which might be something that explains what the company does, its ideas or its values, or simply something to try out.

 

Free Stuff! Through the Post! w00t!

What it doesn’t say is what’s in it - that bit’s a surprise. Dissapointed, I looked around the rest of the site for clues. Several images scattered around on various pages hinted at the content, including one, that looked like it might just be the fabled Matter Box with it’s contents on display. The image was too small to make out most of the items, apart from what appeared to be a carton of Milk, and a Banana!?

Still intrigued, I signed up. The website had said that midnight, Tuesday 29th January, was the absolute deadline to register for the pilot, and I had waited until late Thursday evening. Even the customary sign up e-mail, in response to my registration, told me that I would get my copy of the first matter box in a few months time. I thought that would be that.

A New Hope

A second e-mail arrived on Friday, letting me know that the first Matter Box would be delivered the following morning. I hoped this was a good omen, and not a cruel taunt for being late to the game. As luck would have it, it was the former. At half-past ten on Saturday morning, a knock at the door heralded the arrival of my Matter Box.

From the light pastel blue of the packaging, to the clever way the perforations hug the top of each letter making up the word matter on the front. Even the size of the box was a deliberate decision to ensure it fits through a letterbox. No doubt about it, a designer has clearly been at work here.

What’s inside?

Upon opening, I was immediately greeted by a small paper insert telling me to expect an e-mail asking me to complete a feedback survey in about a weeks time. Seems fair.

The contents itself was well packaged, and although not padded, the only thing in the box that might have warranted extra protection was a the shower gel sample. In my time, I’ve had more than enough shower gel containers leak in my travel bag to know just what a mess it can be. Thankfully, this one arrived intact.

Unpacking everything onto my dining table, this is what I found:

• Stolichnaya Vodka - History of Stolichnaya Vodka booklet & Enamel Badge
• Nintendo - Wii Wristband
• EVO Magazine - EVO Trump card set
• Sony Ericsson - Musc Monster plastic figure
• Penguin / Jordans - “Cereal Poetry” themed muesli sample
• Virgin Atlantic - Change is in the Air Calender
• Matter - Introduction to Matter booklet
• Original Source - Mint and Tea Tree Shower Gel
• Sony Bravia - Play doh pots
• Nissan - “Challenging Convention” booklet & Crayon-shaped soap

If Matter had a target audience in mind when putting this list of items together, I would have to guess at males, aged 25-35, although the soap and shower gel seem out of place. My personal favorite was “Mick”, the Music Monster, closely followed by the Enamel badge. I’m a bit of a sucker for physical character & themed objects as my shelves are starting to testify, and these fit the bill nicely.

The cereal was tasty, and a clever combination of products base on an inspired observation of breakfast behavior. However, I’m afraid I didn’t feel compelled to read the box, I haven’t read a cereal box in any detail for years, and I strongly suspect that cereal-box-readers have been a rapidly declining population for just as long thanks to changing habits and the rising number of televisions and other distractions in the modern breakfast area.

Only three of the products had connections with an online offering to speak of, and assuming my guess about the target audience was right, I found the low number and quality of the experiences very surprising. The Stolichnaya Vodka was perhaps the most engaging and original by extending the experience online through cryptic clues. The Sony Ericsson Music Monster site had plenty of features, and although I’m sure it would appeal to plenty of others, I didn’t really feel compelled to get involved.

Packaging

Clean, modern, and subtle, the design is both practical and attractive. However, although a cut above the usual cardboard box, when compared to the output from someone like Apple, acknowledged masters of the ‘out of the box’ experience, it falls just short of great for a couple of reasons.

While not actually damaged, by the time it was delivered, the had box suffered the usual scrapes & dings that afflict a packages trip through the mail. Although minor, its impact on the outward appearance upon arrival, and thus my initial impression, is changed from receiving something pristine, shiny, and new, and to receiving something clean, travelled, and worn.

Ask anyone familiar with receiving a delivery from Apple, and they will undoubtedly tell you with glowing enthusiasm about the process of opening up their new purchase. Apple carefully avoid the problem of transportation wear & tear by double boxing their items, ensuring the “real” packaging arrives in the same untouched condition as the product it contains. Admittedly double-boxing adds to the expense of putting this kind of thing together, and may not be very practical considering the goal of fitting through a letterbox, so the trade-off may be worthwhile here.

Secondly, the inside of the box doesn’t appear to have received the same design attention as the outside, and is typical of the inside of any cardboard box. It feels like they’re missing out on something by not using the box interior to continue or further the Matter concept.

Surprise!

The element of surprise played a good role in the experience too, though I’m sure it put some people off signing up until they knew what they were letting themselves in for. It’s always difficult to balance the desire to surprise and the need to inform, but I think the secrecy surrounding the nature of the content was a sound idea, and is well worth sticking with. Indeed, it opens up all manner of possibilities.

One idea would be raising pre-delivery interest by providing cryptic clues as to who or what will be featured in the next box. Another might include mixing up several different boxes, each with a slightly different content. This would help to prolong the element of surprise for everyone involved, as even if you saw the contents of a box listed on the internet, you wouldn’t know which box you’d actually received until you’d opened it. It would also encourage additional lines of communication, such as comparing differences in the items you and others received.

Engagement

In the real world, with a box full of physical, tangible products at your fingertips, conversations form freely and naturally around them, around receiving them, opening them, playing with them. This aspect of Matter seems very well thought out, and the execution supports it every step of the way.

Online is different story however - from what I can tell, the Matter box pilot wasn’t widely publicised. I only heard about Matter thanks to electronic word of mouth, but not until after the registration date had passed. It was pilot after all, so I can understand that Matter may have wanted to keep the number of participants deliberately small at this stage and not sought publicity. I can also believe I may not have been part of the target audience for the pilot, and don’t frequent the kind of places Matter was announced. I can think of any number of legitimate reasons why it didn’t appear to be widely publicised, so it may not reflect future efforts fairly or accurately.

The Matter Box has a blog which is a great start, but in the face of the rapid rise of social networking with sites such as facebook, myspace, and even real time social services such as twitter, I think they could be doing more to encourage online conversation and awareness of the concept. Where is the facebook group & app? What about a twitter account describing the ongoing process of compiling the box, and capturing live feedback on ideas and concepts?

Some of people who received the pilot Matter Box were enthusiastic enough to post photos, write ups, and even videos. If there is one thing to learn from the Pilot, I think this it. Consider the interactive and instant nature of the web, and encourage online conversation by building aspects of it in to the products and concepts. For example, Matter box could think about aggregating the fan material on their site, actively encouraging people to post about Matter, maybe offer a competition for best review / photo / video. I think Stolichnaya Vodka had the right idea here, offering cryptic problems to solve, furthering and prolonging the experience, and encouraging conversations between those who had solved it and those who had not but perhaps needed some help. I see lots of possibilities here.

While writing this I received an e-mail from Matter informing me that Tim, the driving force behind Matter, had created a Flickr group to capture peoples pictures - kudos for recognising what was happening and reacting to the unorthodox feedback so quickly.

Final Thoughts

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I signed up for a Matter Box. Would it be a of box of joy - full of goodies, creativity, and fresh ideas? or, a box of cr*p - that companies could use to dump their leftover conference schwag & supermarket samples? The secrecy surrounding the nature of content offered no clues.

On reflection, I can safely say I was pleasently surprised. The packaging was expertly designed, the concept original and well executed, and aside from the inclusion of several “product samples”, an otherwise excellent selection of items. I have no idea what conditions, budgets or other constraints conspired to influence the form of the pilot Matter Box, but they always play a significant role. With that in mind, I’d like to say congratulations to Tim and Artomatic on a great pilot, and thanks for my Matter Box.

I’m looking forward to the next one.

What do you think of the Matter Box?

Did you receive a Matter Box? What would you change? I’d love to hear from other Matter box recipients - what was your experience with it?