What do Betty Crocker cakes, Ikea Furniture and Vietnamese Coffee have in Common?

Let’s tell a story, it’s a bit of a beat up really and starts in the 1950’s when US food company General Mills wanted to create a point of difference about their cake mix. Ernest Dichter, who is attributed as being the 'father of motivational research’, suggested that having women add eggs to the recipe and build on the cake with icing and other treatments to make for an emotional investment in the cake creation was a significant buying impetus. The theory was that the additional work involved in making the cake made women feel much more satisfied with the end product.  

Dichter’s psychological insights into consumer behaviour and making the product sexy was also exemplified when he worked with Plymouth car manufacturer Chrysler, stating a convertible needed to be part of the line up even if it only accounted for 2% of the sales.  Dichter said to Chrysler that beefing up convertible’s advertising and their presence in the showroom would improve sales. Based on the premise that men related to them emotionally as sports cars and mistresses, whilst the sedan was associated with the wife.  The man walked into to show room to look at the convertible but brought his wife back to buy the sedan.  

This however is a digression; the point is around the making of things more laborious to get consumers to value their creation, more than if it was easy. This is acknowledged as the Ikea effect and reported a 2011 paper by Norton, Mochon and Ariely in the Journal of Consumer Psychology.

In a study assembling Ikea boxes, origami and Lego  it was demonstrated the participants valued their product over that created by another, there were limitations that if it was too hard or they failed to complete the task they valued the product less. However they definitely valued their successful creation more.