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Evolution of the Netflix Envelope
An anonymous reader wrote to mention an article over on CNN Money. They go into some detail on what seven years of tinkering has done for the simple red Netflix envelope. From the article: "Years of experimentation went into creating the perfect DVD envelope. In 1999, Netflix started out with a heavy cardboard mailer. With only 100,000 subscribers, costs weren't a concern yet. Then the company experimented with plastic envelopes, which proved not to be recyclable, and padding, which added too much to postage costs. Both top-loading and side-loading envelopes made an appearance."
Netflix somehow always knows when I've sent a movie back before it actually gets there. I always assumed the barcode was somehow related to that.
That said, I've always wondered why Netflix didn't use more square envelopes. Some of the earlier designs looked that way. I wonder if it has to do with sorting or some such.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I've noticed that the return address on the newer netflix envelopes now reads "Nearest Netflix Shipping Facility" and then has a PO box located in my very small rural town. It makes you wonder if they dont scan the barcodes in different locations and then once that nearby local has marked it as received your next disc is sent. There has to be something to the way they get movies to me so quickly when I live so far from a major city.
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
- Winston Churchill
> barcode so it's visible has made a difference in shipping / receiving times
I have the same theory. I played around with different PO drop box's on my route to work (different Postal districts) and discovered on a basis of less than 6 returns that orientation seams more important. I think it was 2 out of 6 got back the next day when oriented incorrectly. more like 3 out of 4 if correctly oriented.
If this were truly the case, since they re-use the cotton sleve, why they dont print the barcode in all 4 orientations, or at least encourage people to orient. randomly it would only be 1 in 8 dvd's to get the window correctly set. if they printed 4 on one side it would be 50/50 if it were both sides you could get 100%
since they allow you to return multiple dvd's in a single envelope, the importance of the barcode may not be so great to them.
Freud was dead, but in the '50s, his theories were all the rage in the US.
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From: http://changingminds.org/analysis/betty_crockers_
Betty Crocker's Egg
Analysis > Betty Crocker's Egg
The story
In the early 50s Freud's psychotherapeutic approaches were sweeping America, even to the point where the CIA was trying to use it for mass-control of the population. Although these alarming mind-control experiments had limited success at best, there were some notable successes, particularly in promotion.
A place where it proved successful was in the unassuming kitchens of middle-class families. Betty Crocker Foods had produced an instant cake-mix. All you needed to do was to add water to the supplied powder. By today's standards, the result was probably quite unpalatable, but then, it was something of a miracle.
The problem was that the miracle mixture did not sell. Undaunted, Betty turned to the new science of psychoanalysis to help solve the problem.
The conclusion of the psychoanalysts that she employed was that the although the average American housewife very much appreciated the convenience of the cake mix, she felt guilty at deceiving her husband and other guests into thinking she had worked hard for them when, in fact, she had done very little work.
Their answer: add an egg.
An egg also has the connotation of life and birth, making the creation of the cake more meaningful -- the housewife thus 'gives birth' for her husband.
Changing the recipe to add an egg to the mixture (which was suitably modified to make space for one egg's worth of protein and cholesterol) offered the guilty housewife a way out. By doing more than adding water, by adding a real ingredient, she could assuage her guilt.
The result: sales soared.
Freud 1, Housewives 0
Comment
Was it all so Freudian? Were the housewives feeling guilty? Maybe -- but there are other explanations. For example:
* Eggs are known for their nutritional value. Adding nutrition would seem to result in a better cake.
* It may assuage guilt to add an egg, but the Freudian 'birth' stuff could be theoretical nonsense.
* Doing work adds investment to the process, thus creating a sense of ownership.
The bottom line, however, is that it worked. In today's pre-packaged economy, there may be opportunity for purveyors of instant, one-shot goods to add a little activity into the process that actually increases sales.
See also