I’m sure some of you have seen the Harvard Business Review published back in 1998
Which heralded the experience economy
Its worth repeating the story here
It captured and reported that the entire history of economic progress can be summarised in the four-stage evolution of the birthday cake
As a vestige of the agrarian economy, mothers made birthday cakes from scratch, mixing farm commodities (flour, sugar, butter, and eggs) that together cost mere pennies..
As the goods-based industrial economy advanced, mums paid a pound or two for premixed pack cake mix ingredients.
Later, when the service economy took hold, busy parents ordered cakes from the bakery or supermarkets, which, at £5 to £10 cost ten times as much as the packaged ingredients.
Now, we are time-starved, parents neither make the birthday cake nor even throw the party.
Instead, they spend £50 or more to “outsource” the entire event to a family style restaurants that stages a memorable event for the kids—and throws in the cake for free.
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