How you’re being fooled by Ikea

AUGUST 25, 2014
NEWS.COM.AU
Ikea loves playing mind-games, including hypnotism
IKEA’S success is no accident. The Swedish furniture giant is messing with your head — and you love them for it.
It’s a psychological trick used by everyone from pick-up artists to big corporations, a trick that was notably used by American founding father Benjamin Franklin.
Way back in the 18th century, Benjamin Franklin wanted to get on the good side of a rival legislator, so he asked to borrow a rare book. The legislator obliged, and the two became lifelong friends.
It turns out, if you do someone a favour, you’ll like them more. That’s because your brain subconsciously alters your thoughts and feelings towards that person to rationalise your behaviour — “I did this person a favour, therefore I must like them”.

We value Ikea products more because we’ve had a hand in creating them.
By forcing customers to “finish the job” and build the furniture themselves, Ikea tricks you into valuing its products more, according to consumer psychologist and Gruen Transfer panellist Adam Ferrier.
Mr Ferrier is the head of strategy at advertising agency Cummins&Partners. He said the “Ikea Effect”, a term coined by researchers from the Harvard Business School in 2011, is now being used by all kinds of brands to bring consumers on board.
“As soon as you do something for someone else, you post-rationalise that action and begin to like that person more,” Mr Ferrier told the audience at the Xerocon conference last week.
“The reason why that’s important today is all communications can now be interactive. If you’re in small business it’s even more important, because you can build your business by asking favours of your clients — and they’ll like you more for doing it.”
According to the 2011 study, when instant cake mixes were first introduced in the 1950s, housewives were resistant — the mixes made cooking too easy, undervaluing their labour.
“As a result, manufacturers changed the recipe to require adding an egg,” the authors write. “While there are likely several reasons why this change led to greater subsequent adoption, infusing the task with labour appeared to be a crucial ingredient.”

Coke asked customers to buy a bottle for a friend instead of themselves. Source: News Limited
Coca-Cola is another brand which used this concept to great effect. Its ‘Share a Coke’ campaign was arguably one of its most successful ever, and played on the same idea — rather than asking people to buy a Coke for themselves, it invited people to buy one for a friend.
The reason psychological tricks such as these are so important, according to Mr Ferrier, is that consumers don’t respond to rational messaging. “Actions change attitudes much faster than attitudes change actions,” he said.
“It’s almost impossible to get someone to change their behaviour through rational argument — if you’ve ever gone to a psychologist and they laid you down on the couch and sat behind you and asked you to speak about your mother, they were wasting your time and taking you for a ride.
“That type of psychology, based around coming to some insight about yourself and then changing your behaviour as a result, has never been proven in science. The relationship between insight and action is vast.”
Mr Ferrier said most psychologists — and brands — had moved on instead to trying to encourage people to approximate the behaviours they wanted to see.
“Having an insight doesn’t mean you’re going to act on that insight,” he said. “Knowing you’re an a**hole and the reasons why doesn’t stop you being an a**hole.”
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
Referring to the psychological tension caused by holding two conflicting beliefs, the principle is illustrated by Aesop’s classic fable ‘The Fox and the Grapes’, in which the fox, unable to reach a bunch of grapes, convinces himself he doesn’t want them anyway — they’re sour.
THE IKEA EFFECT
Coined by researchers from the Harvard Business School in their 2011 paper, the Ikea Effect shows that when people construct products themselves — from flatpack furniture to origami — they come to overvalue their creations, no matter how poorly made.
THE ENDOWMENT EFFECT

The Endowment Effect means people value more what they already have — it’s why salespeople are always so keen to put things in your hands (think car test drives). In general, people are thought to value something around twice as much if they already own it.