Received 14 responses to the previous survey about the attachment to products formed by assembling them your self. Although this is not a huge sample size I think I can safely say that assembly does not play a major factor in a consumer's attachment to a product. In fact, they are slightly less likely to purchase something that requires assembly.
Factors that are more likely to influence attachment to a product are functionality and/or having made something from scratch yourself followed by someone else having made it for you, purchase price, and finally having had to assemble it. This confirms my original suspicion that people like IKEA because it is cheap and easy to move while providing the necessary function. It is possible my questions were somewhat leading as it was my first survey.
4 people did say they were more likely to keep something they had had to put together and 3 people thought their effort to assemble it increased their feelings of attachment. A question that is hard to know the answer to since it asks you to imagine a negative (how you would feel if you hadn't assembled it).
I have been giving this some thought and I think the ability to customize easily (complicated custom functions half of the buyers probably never use) or personalize a piece in some way is probably much more valuable to product attachment and brand loyalty.
I know that one of the first things you do when you buy an Apple product is give it a name and most of my things are named in the possessive (Amanda's iPod, etc.) Does it make me more likely to overlook operational flaws and buy other Apple products? Possibly. Logically I think it more about the huge monetary investment and the products' interconnectedness, but who knows how much of an effect naming something has subconsciously.
This has been on my mind because modularity and multi functional aspects have always been important to me and have figured prominently in the first two projects I've produced at SCAD. It is also a concept I explored in a limited way in my designs for Ed Levin, Inc. (it is difficult to make rings and earrings modular) but something that was of supreme importance in my kitchen and bath designs. Even the largest space likely needs to be multi functional or modular in a kitchen and also baths. This is why people love pull out pieces, adjustable pieces and rolling islands.
Even if you set something one way and then never change it again at least you had the option to set it up the way you wanted and that works best for you. Obviously not applicable to all product lines, but something to think about.