The Effect of Expectations

The primary lesson from “Predictably Irrational” by Dan Ariely is that expectations about a product or experience can have a greater impact on consumer satisfaction than the product or experience themselves. Consumers form expectations that can overcome reality when they receive information about a product before they test it. These expectations can be based on product reviews, appearances, and descriptions, as long as they are introduced before the consumer experiences the product.

Understanding how consumers form expectations can be a key insight into creating products for our customers. Whether you’re designing the packaging or writing the product descriptions, it is important to make the product look and sound appealing in order to influence their purchase decision and their evaluation of the product.

For example, I begin enjoying any Apple brand product before I even finish opening the package. All of their products are well designed, easy to open, and packed very efficiently. The packaging indicates to me that I bought a valuable product and will be satisfied with my purchase. Before I even use the product, Apple has created a valuable experience.

The main example that Ariely provides in his explanation is how consumers are influenced by the knowledge that vinegar has been added into beer during a taste-test. Without knowing about the vinegar, most of the test subjects prefer the altered beer. However, if they hear the description before they taste the altered beer and regular beer, they will be much more likely to choose the regular beer because they form an expectation that overrides their experience.

This test could also be performed to compare generic products to brand-name products. You could have a group that participated in a blind comparison and judged which product was more effective, and another group who is told which one is the generic product before they judge which product was more effective. Customers might prefer paying a premium price for a brand name product because it has fancier packaging or they have brand loyalty. This test would be effective at testing the strength of consumers biases for certain product categories and the impact of product packaging.

As we discussed “True Colors” by Malcolm Gladwell in class, it was mentioned that some products, like at home hair color, are worth paying a premium for because they have a permanent effect on your daily appearance and self-esteem. However, products like over-the-counter medicine and basic beauty products are typically made from the same formula and ingredients, and medicines have to pass the same standards set by the FDA as name-brand products. So unless you’re planning on testing a product like hair color that could have a long-term effect, this experiment could produce very interesting results. I would assume that the knowledge of the generic brand might have the “vinegar effect” seen in Ariely’s beer test.