The shoe box in question is red, with a white silhouette of a puma on top and bottom. It clearly contained a pair of athletic shoes at one stage, but now was being used to teach the concepts of "in the box" and "out of the box". What caught my attention this morning was the small writing on the end of the box: "Average contents: 2"
What could they possibly have meant by that? Surely, their intention was that the box would contain exactly two shoes until it got into the end user's hands and after that they would relinquish concern for the contents. As a purchaser of shoes, I would be extraordinarily annoyed if my new box of shoes contained one shoe or, even worse, three pickles. Nevertheless, it did pique my curiosity, and having nothing else to do as my son insisted I sit with him while he played with his new Duplo, I read on.
On the end of the box covered by the aforementioned label, are five more icons: a no battery image (do shoes require batteries these days?), a no swimming image, an image showing a running person moving towards a door with the label "escape", a warning that products may differ from the images shown (under a drawing of a wingtip), and and icon saying that shoes can only be sold in Paris! (Oops, that must have been my sleep deprived eyes. Upon further inspection, I see that it actually said they can only be sold in pairs, hence the "Average Contents: 2").
It goes on. Most of the stuff isn't worth mentioning (even the stuff I've already mentioned). I did like the list of suggestions for recycling, however:
- Doll house
- Place to store stuff you should have thrown out by now
- Place to store photos you can't store on your hard disk
What gets me is this: Puma spent a lot of money employing someone to spend a lot of time to come up with this rubbish, most of which is seen only by the consumer after he has purchased the product and then probably not even then unless he is that tired of watching his child play with his new Duplo.
Which makes me wonder how much the shoes cost?
I think such "directions for use" add up to the ever increasing general ignorace of the public at large. Though I must say I was stunned and at the same time burst into hysterical laughter after reading such "directions" in the package of, well, Tampaxes: "Dont forget to remove the tampon after your period". In my world, I can't imagine anybody choosing another option. Am I asking too much from people around?
ReplyDeleteAt least those directions, as obvious as they seem, are related to the product.
ReplyDeleteOf course, I wouldn't expect to see instructions for how to use a pair of running shoes on the box; most running shoes are rarely used for running anyway. However most things we purchase these days include really insulting instruction booklets that usually assume the user needs to hear the same 15 warnings at least five times before it sinks in but that the user is perfectly capable of working out the intricacies of the digital menu system with only "follow the prompts on the screen" as instruction. The end result is that no one ever bothers to read the instructions because they rarely include the information the user needs.