The primary take-away from Ariely’s chapter, The Effect of Expectations, is the fact that people are predisposed to using preexisting knowledge to temper their judgment or views. As noted in psychological terms, confirmation bias is “the seeking or interpreting of evidence in ways that are partial to existing beliefs, expectations, or a hypothesis in hand” (Nickerson).
This unique human predisposition can be used in many ways by marketers to gain insights and design valuable experiences for customers. As Ariely noted in this chapter, when consuming certain products, people use parts of their brains that go much deeper than sensory input. According to Ariely, our expectations are bound within perspectives which everyone is trapped in to some degree. Marketers can gain insights from customers and enhance their experiences by adapting their products to the lens through which their customers view the world.
If marketers can accomplish the very difficult task of stepping outside themselves as individuals and empathize with customers to the degree that they are their customers and believe what they believe, customers stand to gain a much richer and personal experience with the products and services being marketed. The possibility of customers developing a strong relationship with brands and products and creating those pleasurable experiences in their brains can be realized.
The primary example Ariely used to depict this phenomenon involved a choice between two kinds of beer. One beer was commercially brewed and the other was laced with vinegar. If customers were given a blind taste test, they seemed to choose the vinegar-laced beer. However, if they were informed of the vinegar before tasting the beers, they would choose the commercially brewed beer. This denotes that a person’s expectations about a product can profoundly affect his satisfaction regardless of sensory perception.
For example, I am in love with God, and in my heart of hearts, I desire to be in line with His Word and what the bible says about me. If I knew of a candle company that held those same views and embraced a stance of love and compassion for the world, I could get behind that company and would actually feel happy to support it even if there were physically better candles elsewhere. By the same token, if I knew of a candle company that utilized child trafficking to produce candles, I would find the candles distasteful no matter how wonderfully amazing those candles seem.
Marrying the commonly held views of certain markets to companies' products/services will help companies reshape customers’ opinions of those products/services and will create a bond between customer and company that goes well beyond said product/service. Marketers will be able to develop products that enhance customers’ lives and actually make them feel good about those products in the process. Reaching customers from the inside will yield measurable, rewarding, outward results for both parties which is supported by the empirical studies discussed in Ariely’s book, Predictably Irrational.
