Surprisingly, one of the most powerful and financially harmful brainwashing companies out there today is the supermarket of minimalist Swedish furniture known as IKEA.
People love IKEA, they really do. They love IKEA more than Jesus, especially when you consider that more copies of the IKEA catalog are printed than copies of the Bible. This is not so bad in fact, because IKEA is still less brainwashing, although it is not inferior in sophistication.
From the moment we get inside, IKEA has deployed tricky manipulation tactics to lure us into buying unnecessary shit. Everything from the smell of their signature meatballs to the bookshelves with dumb names we can't pronounce are all geared towards getting us out of our wallets.
This is how they do it …
THEY ISOLATE YOU FROM OTHER STORES
Most of IKEA stores are located in locations remote from other stores. Ask yourself, how often do you manage to visit another store after leaving IKEA without having to drive? This is extremely rare, if ever. Because IKEA locates its stores, who knows where.
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Traveling to IKEA is not quick and involves time and planning. No one shows up at IKEA as easily as if it’s a trip to the grocery store or pharmacy. These places are usually accessible within a few minutes' walk. If you can walk to IKEA in a few minutes, then you are living in a tent nearby.
This isolation from the city center and urban areas is more than just a statement in bold that the Swedish corporation doesn't care about your free time - it's also part of IKEA's marketing strategy.
This idea involves more than just eliminating competition by literally forcing you to drive miles away; it also makes a trip to IKEA a big “experience” that will inevitably entail spending money on things you don't need. Sure, it could just be their cheap coffee and a can of lingonberry sauce, but the fact remains: less money for you and more money for IKEA.
THEY USE CONFUSION AND CHAOS TO SELL YOU THINGS YOU DO NOT NEED
Has anyone who entered the infamous IKEA labyrinth managed to get out earlier than three years later? This is not a design flaw. The company deliberately wants to disorient you and make you feel like you're lost in a corn maze. The idea is to keep you trapped for as long as possible and away from reality. The many items they strategically placed in the store are designed to ease your boredom and frustration. So, along with the things you need, such as light bulbs or batteries, you buy a lot of unnecessary things, for example, a toy of a wolf eating your grandmother, and other garbage.
The chaos of the layout can only be matched by a crime scene, which is a normal display of IKEA merchandise that tends to look like what can best be described as "a pile of crap." It is logical to assume that buyers would appreciate a neatly designed display case, but these are the wrong thoughts. If that were the case, be sure IKEA would make every effort to ensure that the goods were neatly arranged. But research shows that showcases of cluttered piles of shit boost sales.
THEY USE FOOD SMELL TO SELL YOU MORE THAN FOOD
IKEA knows that the fastest way to our wallets is through our bellies, and the statistics back that up. Food, and even the smell of food, is just a mild drug that causes us to spend our entire salary on home furnishings.
Undoubtedly, “scent marketing” is a psychological sensory weapon used by many stores. You can close your eyes, but you can't stop breathing in the sweet scent of cinnamon rolls and stuff.
Not content with just letting the food smell through the aisles unaided, they are actually pumping the boiled meat smell into their kitchen showcase sections as a reminder of all the delicious things you could cook in this pot, on this stove and etc.
Those meatballs you know damn well! But you took the time to get to the damn remote IKEA location for more than just buying meatballs, right?
In addition, IKEA deliberately places its restaurants and cafes right in the middle of their maze. The constant availability of food keeps us full, energized, and most importantly, happy. Happy people are a little less alert and more likely to spend money on plastic lumber.
EFFECT IKEA
IKEA has a reputation for selling furniture that comes with the kind of instruction you would expect to see if you were building a sophisticated bomb or entry-level robot. Everyone knows this, but for some reason, countless customers flock to IKEA every day to dip their toes in the waters of self-assembly punishment.
What's even more shocking is that supposedly a significant chunk of IKEA's customer base is made up of people who come back for the second and third time.
It sounds crazy, but in fact, studies have shown that people value and love the things that were created with their participation much more. You will be proud of yourself when you assemble the simplest table from IKEA, and you will be even more proud and happy if you assemble a more complex structure yourself. Even if you do this shitty thing, you will still be proud of your work. Why? Because we are all narcissistic people! It's like with children, even if your children are noisier and naughty than strangers, and in general they are just obnoxious little bloodsuckers, you will still love them.
Finishing work with the feeling that you have achieved something material and real is compared to the feeling of victory. Again, take your obnoxious children and make them eat vegetables, they will kick and kick. But, if you introduce them to the cooking process, most likely they will eat the vegetables that they put in the stewing pan with their own hands.
People will always love the material they put their work and time into, even if they get a crappy result. IKEA exploits this better than anyone. It's a nightmare as long as you put together that damn furniture with an unpronounced name, but once you're done, you feel like you've done something that not everyone can do. Until recently, you saw a bunch of items, and now it's a bookshelf. Congratulations, you're just a master!