By Brasen Tham (Y12)
You walk into McDonald’s planning to keep it simple.
“Just a burger,” you think.
Then comes the line:
“Make it a menu for just 2 francs more?”
Suddenly, your CHF 8 decision turns into CHF 10, and it somehow feels like a smart, even rational, upgrade. This isn’t a coincidence. It’s economics, carefully designed.
What’s Actually Going On?
Let’s lay out the options:
- Burger: CHF 8
- Menu (burger + fries + drink): CHF 10
From a classical economics perspective, this looks like a bundle discount. Buying each item separately would cost more, so the menu appears to increase your consumer surplus ( the difference between what you’re willing to pay and what you actually pay.
However, that reasoning depends on one crucial assumption:
That you actually value the fries and the drink
If you didn’t intend to buy them, the “extra value” is partly constructed. Standard economic models assume rational, stable preferences. In reality, decisions are shaped by context. Here, three effects play a key role:
- Relative pricing: You are not evaluating the menu in isolation-you are comparing it to the burger. Therefore, CHF8 vs 10CHF feels like a small increase since you are focusing on the difference and not the total
- Anchoring: The initial price (CHF8) acts as a reference point. Instead of asking “Do I want fries and a drink for CHF 2?”, you are more likely to ask “Is upgrading from CHF 8 to CHF 10 worth it?”, making the upgrade easier to justify.
- Transaction Utility: The economist Richard Thaler showed that people care not only about what they buy, but also about whether it feels like a good deal. So you are balancing both the acquisition utility (the actual usefulness of the items) and the transaction utility (the satisfaction of getting a “good deal”)
“Transaction utility matters… A companion offers to bring you a beer from a fancy resort hotel (or a small, rundown grocery store)… You pay for the experience of the deal”.
– Richard Thaler
The menu is not necessarily a bad deal. In many cases, it is a good value. But the key shift is this:
- From: “Do I actually want this?”
- To: “Is this a better value than the alternative?”
This change in perspective strongly influences your decision.
Final Thought:
“For just 2 francs more” works because it reframes your choice. It highlights the difference, downplays the total cost, and taps into predictable human pattern behavior.
That’s not just marketing but applied microeconomics!
Once you notice it, you will start seeing it everywhere: subscriptions, upgrades, transport options, even supermarket deals.
So, will you notice it every time now? Almost certainly.
Will you sometimes pause and think twice? Probably.
Will you still say yes to the fries and the drink anyway?… Of course.