TLDR: Cake mix was impopular and the Betty Crocker company did not understand why. They went to Bernays who theorized that it was because cake mix was "too easy" leading to housewives feeling guilty that they weren't really contributing anything to the cake. They changed the recipe to include a fresh egg instead of just water and the sales increased substantially.
Quote: In later years, many would portray this as a pivotal moment in the history of cake mixes, the inflection point of a dramatic upward curve.
The truth is, though, that the cake companies already knew about the egg problem. In fact, as early as 1933 Duff had introduced a mix that had bakers add eggs themselves. “The housewife and the purchasing public in general seem to prefer fresh eggs and hence the use of dried or powdered eggs is somewhat of a handicap from a psychological standpoint,” reads the patent application (read more on Duff's cake patents in this lovely Bon Appetit story about cake mix). And actually, the mixes worked better that way. “The fact was one of the reasons cake mixes didn't taste good was they tasted like dried eggs,” says Shapiro. The companies performed surveys and asked women which version they would buy – the results were contradictory – and in the end, they just did as they pleased.
Or maybe the cake mix with dried egg powder didn't taste as good.
> By the Freudian psychology, an unconscious gift from the woman to the husband. The woman offered her eggs and the guilt has just disappeared. Because as stated on changingminds.org, by the Freudian theory, “an egg also has the connotation of life and birth, making the creation of the cake more meaningful - the housewife thus ‘gives birth’ for her husband.”
They offered it as a solution to that great national scourge, "children chewing without swallowing"
(Cue video of callow youth. Food hanging out of his greasy mouth)
Then they cite doctors telling us how Ovaltine is totally necessary for good health.
Ya, your 3step program
I might use it, sometimes, if it eliminated the egg step but still tasted good. I suspect it tasted like crap.
[EDIT] Should have written, the messiest and fiddliest ingredient necessarily involved. Chocolate can be much, much worse if you're melting bars rather than using powder, as can some other things that may be in a cake.
It's not one or the other and can easily be both reasons.
The full documentary is free on YouTube and worth the time.
Find out what they really want. To be loved, to be a good person, to be smart, to be successful, to have a bright future...
And then tell them a story about how that is exactly how it is.
They will buy it. Every time