IKEA hacks have even become their own cottage industry — other retailers sell products specifically made to work with the company's furniture.

So how did the brand become so influential? At the heart of its success is value. Similarly to McDonald's, you know what you’re going to get when you shop at IKEA, and it's going to be affordable.

In fact, price is so important to the company's strategy that it first decides on how much a particular product is going to cost and then reverse engineers the construction.

The company has a "democratic design approach," according to Antonella Pucarelli, the chief commercial officer of Ikea retail U.S., which means that it “deliver[s] form, function and quality products at a low price. Even though our products are affordable, we don't compromise on quality."

(IKEA has had high-profile recalls of millions of chests and dressers after several tipped over and harmed children. In response, it admitted the chests and dressers could be dangerous and offered free kits to anchor the chests and dressers to the wall, as well as refunds.)

Some of IKEA's products are made from wood, some are made from particleboard (recycled wood chips fused together), keeping production more affordable.

IKEA furniture is shipped and sold in flat-packs, which makes transporting it cheaper, and customers put it together themselves (or pay for someone to do it for them), further reducing labor costs.

And the simple style of the furniture is not just because it’s a Scandinavian aesthetic. It's actually easier and cheaper to make affordable versions of such furniture look good.

"IKEA's aesthetic is pared down and minimal, which is not an accident. Uncomplicated forms with very little applied decoration are easier to manufacture. More can be produced in a shorter amount of time, increasing efficiency and decreasing production costs," Ashlie Broderic, interior designer for Broderic Design, told CNBC Make It. "The Malm bed is an excellent example of simple rectangular shapes combined to create a very chic bed."

And "most of IKEA's furniture is available in black, white, or unfinished wood. By producing more items in fewer finishes, IKEA takes advantage of economy of scale,” Broderic said.

All this makes the “aesthetic per dollar” ratio very high, added neuromarketer and author of The Buying Brain Dr. A. K. Pradeep.

He explained that IKEA's affordable style is its "category-busting-metric," or what makes it stand out from all the other brands in that space.