Making it too easy can backfire: Cake mix story

At times making it too easy can backfire!
That’s what  General Mills, a famous US based  Food company uncovered when they were investigating the reasons as to why their Betty Crocker brand ‘Cake mix’ failed to generate sales.

On analysis they found the following issues,
– Women always took pride in preparing cakes and sharing recipes
– People started feeling it was all too easy to make a good tasty cake
– The cake prepared from the Cake Mix  which contained powedered eggs was not tasting great

So, General Mills made a move which was bit counter intuitive. Instead of making it all easy and convenient to cook, they changed the recipe allowing the consumers to add fresh eggs while using the Betty Crocker Cake Mix.
The result – sales soared and even today, Betty Crocker is a solid brand for cake mixes.
Betty Crocker advertisement which is said to be have created a buzz in 1950s,

At times there is more to it than just making it too convenient. Isn’t it?.

ResonVate Thought
Counter intuitive move to reduce a factor of convenience led to increased sales in cake mix.

I would like to ResonVate
with ideas on challenging the status quo
which can be applied in product and service design, behavior science, human centered design
in areas like Artificial intelligence, Robotics Process Automation, automation

Reference
https://www.bonappetit.com/entertaining-style/pop-culture/article/cake-mix-history

http://changingminds.org/analysis/betty_crockers_egg.htm