This weekend marks our first birthday, which got me thinking about gifts. (Shameless plug: our gift is to you. We're giving away a face mask designed especially for guys).
Rather than reflect on the year gone by, I'd rather tell you about why we decided on a gift with purchase (most brands just discount stuff if they celebrate their birthday at all).
I love a well wrapped gift. It's a thing in my family. The bows under our family Christmas tree are... excessive.
Here is why I do it.
The wrapping is the visible sign to you - the recipient - that I invested time in this gift. Everything else I did is silent: the shopping, deciding. The wrapping is the one piece of evidence that I thought about you before you walked in the room.
Hand someone a gift in a bag from the store and it is the same object, same value, same everything. But the message is completely different. One says here. The other says I was thinking about you.
I taught brand strategy for years, and that is basically the whole course. Not wrapping paper specifically, but the principle underneath it. Nothing is ever just the product. The box, the paper, the bow, the pause before the reveal... all of that is part of what the person actually experiences. Ceremony is not decoration sitting on top of the thing. Ceremony is part of the thing.
There is a study that backs this up.
Four researchers, published in Psychological Science in 2013, handed people a chocolate bar with instructions. Break the bar in half while it is still wrapped. Unwrap one half and eat it. Then unwrap the other half and eat it. A second group just ate their chocolate however they wanted.
The group that followed the sequence rated the chocolate as more flavorful. They took longer to savor it. And they were willing to pay nearly twice as much for more of it.
Same chocolate. The ceremony changed how it tasted *and how much they valued it.
Key to their findings: it has to be an actual sequence you follow. And watching someone else perform the ritual produced absolutely no effect at all. You have to do it yourself. You cannot outsource ceremony and still get the benefit of it.
Which is where a lot of men get into trouble.
Somewhere along the way most of us were taught that spending effort on ourselves is embarrassing. That trying is a little vain, that caring is a little soft, and that the cool move is to look like you did not think about it much. So we skip the "wrapping" and we tell ourselves that is modesty.
Maybe it is modesty. But the wrapping paper in this metaphor is the time you spend shaving your neckline, styling your hair, trimming your...
We hear it from guys all the time, they just don't feel put together. 'I don't know where to start. Can you help?'
Confidence is built. It gets built in the steps nobody sees you take.
And that is why our birthday giveaway is a face mask. Not because I want you to buy the face masks. Because I want you to put on that mask, take 15-minutes for yourself, and then notice how you feel.
If it doesn't hit, I'll refund every penny you paid for it! haha
Seriously, I started this business because I saw an opportunity to help guys feel better about themselves because, I believe, that from that little boost of confidence comes bigger moves. Asking someone out. Asking for the raise you deserve. Launching the thing you've been sitting on for years.
Through Friday night, every order over $50 goes out with a mask in the box. No code, nothing to add to your cart. We put it in.
Thank you for being here for year one. I can't say any more than that:
Thank you.
The Wrapping is the Point
This weekend marks our first birthday, which got me thinking about gifts. (Shameless plug: our gift is to you. We're giving away a face mask designed especially for guys).
Rather than reflect on the year gone by, I'd rather tell you about why we decided on a gift with purchase (most brands just discount stuff if they celebrate their birthday at all).
I love a well wrapped gift. It's a thing in my family. The bows under our family Christmas tree are... excessive.
Here is why I do it.
The wrapping is the visible sign to you - the recipient - that I invested time in this gift. Everything else I did is silent: the shopping, deciding. The wrapping is the one piece of evidence that I thought about you before you walked in the room.
Hand someone a gift in a bag from the store and it is the same object, same value, same everything. But the message is completely different. One says here. The other says I was thinking about you.
I taught brand strategy for years, and that is basically the whole course. Not wrapping paper specifically, but the principle underneath it. Nothing is ever just the product. The box, the paper, the bow, the pause before the reveal... all of that is part of what the person actually experiences. Ceremony is not decoration sitting on top of the thing. Ceremony is part of the thing.
There is a study that backs this up.
Four researchers, published in Psychological Science in 2013, handed people a chocolate bar with instructions. Break the bar in half while it is still wrapped. Unwrap one half and eat it. Then unwrap the other half and eat it. A second group just ate their chocolate however they wanted.
The group that followed the sequence rated the chocolate as more flavorful. They took longer to savor it. And they were willing to pay nearly twice as much for more of it.
Same chocolate. The ceremony changed how it tasted *and how much they valued it.
Key to their findings: it has to be an actual sequence you follow. And watching someone else perform the ritual produced absolutely no effect at all. You have to do it yourself. You cannot outsource ceremony and still get the benefit of it.
Which is where a lot of men get into trouble.
Somewhere along the way most of us were taught that spending effort on ourselves is embarrassing. That trying is a little vain, that caring is a little soft, and that the cool move is to look like you did not think about it much. So we skip the "wrapping" and we tell ourselves that is modesty.
Maybe it is modesty. But the wrapping paper in this metaphor is the time you spend shaving your neckline, styling your hair, trimming your...
We hear it from guys all the time, they just don't feel put together. 'I don't know where to start. Can you help?'
Confidence is built. It gets built in the steps nobody sees you take.
And that is why our birthday giveaway is a face mask. Not because I want you to buy the face masks. Because I want you to put on that mask, take 15-minutes for yourself, and then notice how you feel.
If it doesn't hit, I'll refund every penny you paid for it! haha
Seriously, I started this business because I saw an opportunity to help guys feel better about themselves because, I believe, that from that little boost of confidence comes bigger moves. Asking someone out. Asking for the raise you deserve. Launching the thing you've been sitting on for years.
Through Friday night, every order over $50 goes out with a mask in the box. No code, nothing to add to your cart. We put it in.
Thank you for being here for year one. I can't say any more than that:
Thank you.