1/ @jamiekaywilde and I just put together a Marketing 101 syllabus for the Brew (link at the bottom of this thread)
it led me down some crazy marketing rabbit holes
here's my favorite one
A thread on why Betty Crocker deliberately made its cake mixes a worse product
2/ In the 1950s General Mills released its now-famous Betty Crocker cake mixes
the mixes included all the dry ingredients, plus milk and eggs in powdered form
all you needed to do was add water, mix it all up, and put the pan in the oven
3/ Sales we're nonexistent
despite being an unbelievable product that saved tons of time in the kitchen, no one bought it
we'll get to the reason why in a second
but first...
4/ Put your marketing hat on
what would you do in this situation?
maybe release a campaign explaining how much time you could save using the product?
or double down on the "just add water" tag line?
clearly customers weren't understanding the benefits of the mixes
5/ General Mills did none of the above
they hypothesized that customers were resisting the product for a different reason...
guilt
6/ It was too easy to make a delicious cake
people were embarrassed to receive compliments on something they had made in less than 10 minutes
they had literally just added water
7/ So General Mills made the product "worse"
they removed the powdered egg from the mix, tasking the baker with beating in two, real eggs
they relaunched the product with the slogan "you add the eggs"
and sales took off
8/ Because less convenient meant less guilt
those two little eggs gave bakers a sense of ownership over the cakes they made
now, anyone baking a cake felt like they did jusst enough work while still reaping most of the time saving benefits
9/ What's the lesson?
don't always do what's logical cuz marketing is a dark art
Rory Sutherland puts it best
"People don't think what they feel, they don't say what they think, and they don't do what they say."
now go bake a cake
10/ Heres the Marketing Syllabus
What you won’t find here: fluffy listicles that tell you what you already know, like "it's all about authenticity."
What you will find: just click to find out
morningbrew.com/daily/stories/…
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