The Cake Mix Story
There is a story passed around marketing circles about how when cake mixes became popular in the later 40s, sales languished, and what saved the day was adding a fresh egg such that the cooks (mostly housewives) no longer felt guilty if they did not have real cooking to do.
I’m not a marketing person, I can never claim to understand how or why anyone seems to do anything. Human motivation and ‘operandi’ are all a mystery to me. But I very much enjoy studying such things (i.e. ‘The Power of Habit,’ etc.).
There is a DIY product I wish to bring to market. Specifically, I wish to sell the core parts and allow people to assemble and configure them at home. Having heard of this Cake Mix story — I sought out to learn if I should take into consideration any modification to my design or instructions to improve sales.
Where do DIY people draw their line?
I recall as a young kid there were two types of plastic model kits, one that you meticulously glue each and every part together yourself (sometimes with little pins and holes to help guide the exact placement), and on the simpler side, snap-together models that require one to only cut the individual pieces from the mould frame, and press together. Clearly, there were two very strong camps here, and the snap-together crowd thought the other camp were a bunch of ‘glue-sniffing idiots.’ And the glue-sniffing idiots thought the ADHD snap-together camp were simply ‘lazy idiots.’ I’m sure both idiots carry these opinions forward today.
Personally, the models I preferred to play with were female, that aside, I would be remiss if I did not mention a third camp that built models without kits, but rather from scratch. I tended to fall into this camp more realistically. Today we are called Makers. Even recently I’ve been helping design a new type of computer desk, and while my teammates are using 3D modelling software, I chose to build a physical model from foam-core and test it for actual functionality.
Sadly, I can’t provide a photo since it will be turned into a patent most likely.
In searching the web for the source of the story, I found this Cake Mix story covered by Snopes (you should stop here and read it) and instantly saw it stamped ‘False’ to my chagrin. I always liked the story, and it made sense, but now I had to question it.
The basic story is presented as:
‘A food processing firm marketed a cake mix which required that the housewife add only water to produce a creamy batter and fine cake. The company could not understand why the mix would not sell, until special research revealed the public felt uneasy about a mix that required only water. It seemed too simple. They felt they themselves had to do something to a cake mix. So the company changed the formula and required the housewife to add an egg. Immediately, the mix achieved great success.’
But as one reads Snopes’ breakdown of the story, you’ll find a strange mixture of pedantic debate, poor assumptions, missing data, opinion, and perhaps even hidden agenda (the need for Snopes to be the harbinger of ‘truth’).
Clearly, I enjoy a good turn of phrase, but I’m not sure it belongs in a clinical report such as a Snopes Report, if I’m to be pedantic as well:
‘Although there’s a grain of truth to this claim, the legend that sprouted from it is a different kind of fruit’
So, permit me to break down how I read an article like this:
- We don’t know how much of the market was indeed housewives. At least in the 60s onward, I recall men using and making these boxed food items more than women.
- This article focuses on Pillsbury. But, there were dozens of companies that made these products, and they were made outside of America as well.
- That some company was considering this issue of eggs ‘before’ products were released does not change that some or even one company was in fact confused.
- That there even was an ongoing debate makes the spirit of this story more accurate, not less.
Example:
‘It was then that the major food companies sought to find out why more families weren’t using cake mixes and brought about the circumstances that gave rise to the “egg theory”’
Another way to read this is: sales slumped, and they revisited many options, including the egg theory.
The author’s bias comes across in each passage.
In counter to this: the author of a book in the 50s (Laura Shaprio) wrote:
‘the fact was that fresh eggs produced superior cakes’.
That, right there, is a useful fact. We are not dealing with just opinion; egg is an emulsifier (bonds water and oil). I personally have made cakes with and without fresh eggs and can tell you empirically, fresh egg wins. My feeling as a ‘cook’ doesn’t matter, only the end result does.
The Snopes author then describes the decline of young women in the kitchen as what sealed the survival of cake mixes. Ok, I’m good with that. But… that is one of those grandiose statements that belittle the harsh reality of sales and marketing in terms of holding onto a market. Rather, what we have to ask is: what would happen if we did nothing to promote and position a product?
In other words: how steep of a decline would there have been of this product if they did not do all the research, and educate the market such as Earnest Dichter (the analyst for General Mills) did with dividing up the steps of cake making into stages, putting the emphasis on the final steps as opposed to first steps that included the egg? We must consider a positive against a baseline — a positive, even if the collective market goes down. Or said the other way, how much worse could it have been?
So, is the story false, or… is it more complex? I vote this story is ‘mostly true.’ or ‘true in spirit.’
And a better way to then pass the story along should be offered, instead of just criticising it. My own feeble attempt would be:
One of the early instant food products was a cake mix requiring one to simply add water, mix, and bake to produce a finished cake. Research revealed the public felt uneasy about a mix that required only water; It seemed too simple, they felt they themselves had to do something to a cake mix. Several companies changed the formula and packaging that would require the users to add a fresh egg. There was mixed success with each, and over time as cooking from scratch was culturally lost to other endeavours, the simplified cake mix product has endured on shelves today.
(or some such)
While hosting Invention USA for the History channel, I met someone I became friends with that manufactures and sells a DIY kit for a stand up musical instrument called the Bogdon Bass (his family name).
Like everything we had on the show, we put them and their invention through its paces, and instantly I noticed that the instructions did not exactly match what was needed in order to correctly build it (this is where my own ‘being pedantic,’ articulate, dyslexic, and having a steep learning curve is an advantage). He offers the Bass in Left and Right-hand configurations as well.
The Bogdon Bass is literally made of a cardboard box, some weed trimmer style string, and a handful of hardware store nuts and bolts. I LOVE IT.
That said, his kit produces a quality of sound that objectively is better than the amazingly expensive classic stand up Basses (we tested it with a group of blindfolded Bass players).
So what is it I’m building?
It is a line of products I’ve wanted to make for decades, a line of travel bags. One of the items in the collection would be a DIY bag. It would allow one to customize and build a bag both exactly to one’s requirements, but also supply the fabric themselves (cut to a pattern that would be provided) such that it can be almost completely custom, and mended while travelling, and updated, and changed, and, and, and, etc. Yes, I have many ideas for what I want, hence many ‘ands.’
When will I make this line of products?
I spin many plates while dancing on the back of a dancing rhino.
But, why I wrote this whole article is to express the thinking, process, and research one finds themselves doing which might at first be tangential to the original goal. But more so, what I wanted to capture here was something quite subtle. That there is this anomaly of ‘experts’ who present this spin on things, and if done well enough (perhaps by appeal to authority, such as a huge and long-standing site like Snopes) become the ‘new truth’ on a given topic. That they become ‘the final word.’
But, don’t be tricked by this, it may just be a new or novel opinion, on an old and accepted topic. Much like the play Wicked, which retells the story of the ‘evil witches’ from a new point of view). It does not mean they are not evil, it just lends reason or back story to who and what they were about. Often making things more complex. There is a reason some stories carry well (oral tradition) and are easy to remember.
Personally, I prefer to spin plates (work on many things at the same time, making each thing a little better as I go), instead of stories. Although I appreciate a good spinning of a story or concept as well, as they both keep the mind flexible.
I suspect this is the fun of marketing, to capture people’s attention and imagination.
