☕ The PG Tips Collecting Cards — Anticipation in a packet
Will this be the one?
🧠 UX Interpretation: Engagement through incompletion
Inside each packet of PG Tips tea, there was a card. A small printed piece, part of a larger set. Birds, flags, locomotives, history.
You did not know which one you would get. That uncertainty was the point.
Each packet carried a possibility. A missing piece might appear. Or another duplicate.
🎯 Theme: Anticipation drives behaviour
The cards created a loop over time. Open, check, compare, store. The set was rarely complete, but always close enough to continue.
Duplicates were not failures. They were currency. Trade with friends, negotiate, swap.
The experience extended beyond the object itself. It lived in conversations, collections, and quiet checking against the list.
This is design built around anticipation rather than completion.
💡 UX Takeaways
- Uncertainty can increase engagement.
- Incomplete systems encourage return behaviour.
- Duplicates can create social interaction.
- Value can exist in the process, not just the outcome.
- Design can unfold over time rather than in a single moment.
📎 Footnote
PG Tips issued a wide range of collectable card series throughout the mid-twentieth century. The cards were included inside tea packets, encouraging repeated purchase and long-term collection.
📎 Footnote 2
For many, the collection was never finished. A few cards always remained missing, keeping the set permanently open. The experience was less about completion and more about the possibility of it.