The Rise of the Ridiculous Product Ritual
Somewhere along the line, marketers forgot that people like being told how to enjoy things. Not in a bossy way. In a ceremonial way. Lately a few odd little companies have started shipping products with instructions that feel closer to a dare than a manual. A jar of citrus cleaner that suggests opening the windows, putting on loud music, and cleaning exactly one surface before stopping. A bar of soap that asks you to wash your hands slowly for the length of a song you choose at random. Nothing practical about it. Completely memorable.
The interesting part is how these rituals are being made. Not by a weary copywriter on a Thursday afternoon. By feeding a model strange constraints and letting it invent tiny experiences. The best briefs are oddly specific. Something like: "Invent a 45 second ritual for opening a jar of honey that makes the user feel like they discovered it in a forest cabin. No luxury language. Include one surprising physical action." The results are weird. Some are useless. A few are gold. Those are the ones people talk about at dinner.
This is marketing that sneaks in sideways. No campaign. No big reveal. Just a product that quietly instructs you to do something unusual with your own hands. People repeat it for friends. They film it without being asked. Suddenly the brand is not the object. The brand is the tiny story that happens around it. It feels human because it is slightly inconvenient.
Expect this to get stranger. Products that come with rotating rituals generated each week. Objects that ask you to involve another person in the room. Small brands commissioning entire libraries of micro ceremonies so no two customers get the same one. We spent twenty years trying to remove friction from products. The next trick might be adding a little theatre back in.
The interesting part is how these rituals are being made. Not by a weary copywriter on a Thursday afternoon. By feeding a model strange constraints and letting it invent tiny experiences. The best briefs are oddly specific. Something like: "Invent a 45 second ritual for opening a jar of honey that makes the user feel like they discovered it in a forest cabin. No luxury language. Include one surprising physical action." The results are weird. Some are useless. A few are gold. Those are the ones people talk about at dinner.
This is marketing that sneaks in sideways. No campaign. No big reveal. Just a product that quietly instructs you to do something unusual with your own hands. People repeat it for friends. They film it without being asked. Suddenly the brand is not the object. The brand is the tiny story that happens around it. It feels human because it is slightly inconvenient.
Expect this to get stranger. Products that come with rotating rituals generated each week. Objects that ask you to involve another person in the room. Small brands commissioning entire libraries of micro ceremonies so no two customers get the same one. We spent twenty years trying to remove friction from products. The next trick might be adding a little theatre back in.