The IKEA Effect meets the HelloKitty Frenzy.
Two words Heather - Marketing Power. That's my answer to Heather's "Does not Get it" question when she focuses her attention on IKEA and its maniacal shoppers. Allow me to respond with an even better example of MarketingPower that drove customer buying maniacal-frenzy of an even more scarier order.
Back during the millenium 6 years ago when I was in Singapore - the McDonald’s chain in Singapore introduced a series of 6 wedding costumed Hello Kitty dolls with the purchase of Happy Meals. Licensed to McDonald’s for its promotion by Sanrio, customers buying a Happy Meal were entitled to buy either a Hello Kitty or a Dear Daniel (her lesser known male counterpart) that came in matching wedding outfits at S$4.50 each. For each of the 6 weeks, a new pair of these dolls was introduced, each featuring a different wedding costume. The first saw the space age wedding outfits to celebrate the new millennium, culminating with the Chinese wedding. Wedding outfits from other nationalities such as Korean, Malay and even Indian were also featured. For each design, 400,000 pairs of Kitty and Daniel were produced. Each store received an average of 2,000 pairs to sell, depending on sales volume. Yes! Math geniuses - thats abt 200 McDonalds in the island of Singapore.
Did the IKEA-Effect happen? Well Yeaaah - only worse!
A Case study here describes this catfight in detail - "Demand for the dolls was unprecedented. People stood in endless queues overnight just to buy a pair. It was reported that some 250,000 people were waiting in queues even before the outlets were opened. Reports streamed in about fights, unruly behavior, and even molest as people queued for these dolls. Although the police were called in to control the crowd, jostling in the queues resulted in several fights. A glass door at a McDonald’s outlet shattered under the weight of the pushing crowd, injuring several customers. Several people were arrested in the process of purchasing the coveted dolls, while others were fined. There were also instances of fainting while queuing for the dolls. Some of the McDonald’s outlets were also forced to close to break the crowd. Besides such rowdiness among people in the queue, the long queues also created massive traffic jams."
"There were also some civic embarrassments. Singaporeans were more interested in the dolls than in the Extra Value Meals. Thousands of the hamburgers were strewn on the roads. People were not interested in eating them. They queued only for the dolls and threw away the meal set that had to be bought to buy the doll. The mindless throwing away of food fit for eating enraged the community. After the first five wedding sets were introduced in the first month, McDonald’s had raked in S$20 million from the meal-and-kitty set. A total of 2.8 million dolls were sold, and 12,000 meals were donated to charities by customers who were more interested in the dolls than in the meals."
This was Marketing Power on an overdrive which sold the product of Sanrio in a Channel of McDonalds with a really unique bundling to get an insanely frenzy demand that had only to be seen to be believed. The social consequences these had in relationships especially when you are in college (which I was then) was a great seat to view and understand this.
I do NOT think the IKEA effect comes close to mirror Hello Kitty. Wont you agree Heather ;)
