Every once in a while I look at a product and think of something that would be cool to do with it but is usually impossible. Today the thought was that Kleenex or Scott Tissue should partner with Flickr (the photo sharing site) to let people choose photos for their Kleenex boxes.

The reason this came to mind is because I am an avid Flickr user (since 2005) and there is a very pretty photo being used on the Kleenex box I recently bought and have sitting on my desk. It is a photo of a street somewhere in Europe with flower boxes and pots of geraniums all long a very old but pretty building. Flickr is full of photos like this and Kleenex would not have to pay royalties to use them. Creative commons has licencing available to share and use people’s photography that opt in for it. Credit would be needed in printing their url or name on the box in small print in the corner though. Plus other opt ins have been sent through the Flickr website for creative commons, like the opt-in for use of my photos in the Getty Images collection(none of mine have ever been chosen, but I said ok anyway).

I think something like a kleenex box is just as much a personal style product as it is a general use commodity. Some people who enjoy creativity would rather buy a box with the most interesting photos that Flickr has ever had on their site on it, or even spend a little extra to customize it and have their own photos on a more permanent box and refill the box over and over again. Other companies known for great photography like Martha Stewart Magazine and National Geographiccould offer their photos in the pool to choose from also. It is kind of like outsourcing/crowd-sourcing the creative design process and personalizing it at the same time.

This whole e-commerce process could even be online where someone chooses from pre-determined designs or builds their own permanent Kleenex (made from recycled plastic rather than cardboard?) boxes for each room in the house and orders bulk Kleenex to refill them again and again online. Then the most popular designs and photos could be eventually rolled out to supermarkets and sold for the same price as the regular packaging but would be preferable for the people who really enjoy upgrading to cool photography and great style. 

Flickr users are usually creativity/style interested people and also usually bloggers. The promotion for these new products would be possible without buying media if they could ask the bloggers to all spread the word on their blogs within their circle of readers, family and friends. They could give one away free to the blogger to blog about and show people how it turns out and looks in their home. Unless the order process sucks, this would be a great advertising-promotion. 

Would there be a cost savings in this product? Probably not, but the uniqueness may help market-share when the cost stay the same. The new ecommerce platform for web sales, creative setup, output and shipping would be expensive. But there would be little or no creative design, advertising or marketing costs involved. So it is less about cost savings and more about a new business model.  Would this stay popular long term? I think initially 2-3 years yes. But then it may evolve to a more eco friendly approach of buying refills and not wasting resources on boxes all the time and that will be the big differentiation.

Eventually creative designers will be added back into the process because people get bored of all the work involved with customization after a few years. But the technology involved on the internet could always supply information about the best most popular photos that have been rated the highest on Flickr or other photography sites. These could be chosen by designers or by market researchers that keep up on pop culture trends and sent for mass production too.  So, sometimes using subliminal methods of crowd-sourcing by using existing 3rd party data can help a lot too, because people have already done the work in voting for things, you just pick from the top of the list.

Now I am so bummed that I can’t go to flickr, select a bunch of my favorite photos (flowers, LOL Cats, landscapes, food, scenery, cars, TV show screen shots, travel locations) and put them on Kleenex boxes. Someone needs to build this soon!