Can I Help?: The Power of Inclusion

In the early 1950’s Betty Crocker was on a roll. The company’s twenty-year successful run of Bisquick (“90 seconds from package to oven”) clearly positioned the company as the partner to homemakers eager to make meal preparation quick and easy. The company (owned by General Mills) elected to expand into cake mixes with the introduction of White Cake in 1951. It was a mix that simply required adding water, like Bisquick.

However, the product failed to take off. Housewives felt no need to brag a...