The Experience Stack
This is a special edition packet of Benson & Hedges called Silver Slide. [I have a blog post on packaging which includes this and other examples.]
The pack understands that a large component of smoking cigarettes is gifting them to other people. There’s a lot of reciprocity wrapped up in that act: It can be used to develop an aura of generosity, or cashed-in immediately to get a hard-won conversation.
Silver Slide develops a story around that act. Offering the cigarette, overlooked usually but now prominent because of novelty, becomes part of the experience. Really, you don’t need any remaining cigarettes.
My favourite touch: When you slide open the pack, there’s a space to write messages on the inner draw. That’s exactly what social smoking, especially with strangers, is about.
Now, I don’t smoke, and actually I really dislike it. I’m super please it’s banned. But, gosh, if I consumed products just because they tried hard, I’d be a smoker. This is designed precisely for flirting… and it’ll associate itself, as a product, with that happy moment.