Experience Expectations

The primary lesson from “The Effect of Expectations” chapter of Predictably Irrational is that consumer expectations influence their thought of the product. Ariely begins with an example of how, in a sports game, the team cheered for can honestly make a viewer think that a play should be called a certain way and begs the question, “How can any two parties look at precisely the same event and interpret it as supporting their opposing point of view?” This boils down to the hypothesis that our expectations about an event can affect our overall perception of the event. Having an assumption will cloud our expectations. There is something fundamentally irrational in humans that change our perception. The expectations of adding vinegar to beer changed the amount of enjoyment a drinker experienced. When the consumer knew the vinegar had been added, they enjoyed it less. When the consumer either did not know about the vinegar or found out after the beer had been tried, the taster enjoyed the beer with vinegar more. The timing of the input was critical. The tasters had to know of the ingredient before they had experienced it for themselves for their perceptions to be changed. The experiment found that “if you tell people up front that something might be distasteful, the odds are good that they will end up agreeing with you.” The same was found with perceived value and the ambiance of a coffee testing facility: the better the facility looked, the more the coffee was worth. Even when brain sensory receptors were tested, memory of a brand’s reputation effected the reception of the item.

This information is valuable to customer experience. The brain does not start from scratch with every new situation it encounters. Stereotypes then “provide shortcuts to our never-ending attempt to make sense of complicated surroundings.” People judge experiences with a pool of stereotypes and perform in accordance to those stereotypes. Marketers equipped with this knowledge should give consumers preconceptions about the excellence of their product in order to maximize the consumer’s experience. If they reach a consumer first and tell the consumer that they will enjoy the product, the consumer will be more likely to see value in the product and enjoy their experience with it. Word-of-mouth tactics are especially prevalent here. Marketers who disguise themselves as part of the public can spread the word about a product in a positive light. For example, a marketer who replies to blog entries on engadget.com about their product can put their product in a positive light. This will make the users (who are primarily early adopters of technology) more predisposed to like their product and speak positively about it. These positive responses will affect their less technology savvy friends and more people will see this product positively. Users who are told what to expect will view the product in a biased way.

An example of this type of marketing is the notion that Polo shirts are superior to other shirts. The other day, I had two friends wearing similar grey, single pocket t-shirts. One was purchased at Wal-Mart for less than $5 and one was purchased from a Polo store for about $30. The pockets were in the same location and the same size. The grey looked the exact same shade, and the texture of the shirt had no significant difference. If I had asked a third-party group who had been exposed to the Polo brand which shirt had superior value, they would for sure report that the Polo shirt did. If I asked people who had never heard of the brand, and had no preconceptions or stereotypes for what an embroidered horse decal meant, the results would be about even. The perceptions of the first group have been skewed because they know what the brand means. They view the brand in a biased way and produce a biased response.