The experience of giving (and receiving) nothing

Books, video games, music, video; Xmas gift staples are disappearing quicker than HMV’s balance sheet, and we are morphing into handing our loved ones an email with the film or book you’ve chosen in place of the traditional plastic box or paperback.

The problem is that digital giving and receiving is as unfulfilling as a dry slice of turkey; it’s the development of the dire gift voucher experience. So why is the experience of giving a digital gift so lacking compared to a physical object?

Having a long think about it, asking colleagues and searching the web it’s difficult to pinpoint the main reason for the unfulfilling digital experience, but some common insights are:

·         People like to share what they’ve received with friends and family.

·         It’s harder to imagine (and get excited by) what you’ve received when for example faced with a piece of paper with the name of an album.

·         It’s natural for people to assign value to physical objects.

·         There is no excitement; digital can’t be wrapped, put under a tree and inspected for clues!

Looking around it’s interesting that nobody has identified these issues and set about making a memorable (and profitable) digital giving experience. The best that companies have to offer is a gift card with your suggestion printed onto it from Amazon  and Wrapp.com’s   smart phone enabled vouchers!

 It’s sad to think what the present exchange at Christmas might become; a countdown to the synchronised emailing of gifted digital content between your family! Surely there is an opportunity to utilise technology in creating an exciting, memorable and truly social digital gifting ceremony?!

 Maybe solutions could involve an interactive touchscreen unwrapping app, ‘Bump-ing’  two smart phones together to reveal the present following a fun animation between screens or an interactive gift card that shares the gifted content; something similar to IDEO’s C60 music player concept?

 Whatever the answer might be, one thing is for sure, it won’t stop your aunty treating you with a pair of socks.