Anticipation increases actual enjoyment

New to Science Says? This is a 3min practical summary of a scientific study 🎓 Join 31,492 marketers who use science, not flawed opinions 📈 Subscribe here.

This insight is brought to you by… Modash

In a recent survey, 92% of influencer marketers said they use bundle deals to lower the price per deliverable. It’s a smart way to boost content output and maximize brand touchpoints - while staying cost-efficient. 

But it’s not always the right move for every campaign.

Modash’s free guide breaks down what bundles are, when to use them, how to negotiate like a pro, and the 3 most common strategies marketers are using today.

Want to sponsor Science Says? Here’s all you need to know.

📝 Intro

You’re gearing up to launch a new product you know your customers will love. But with everyone’s packed schedules these days, you wonder: 

Is it really worth the extra effort to build anticipation? Or should you just send an email on release day?

Research from Cornell and USC confirms that anticipation isn’t just hype - it boosts customer enjoyment and satisfaction much more than we thought.

P.S.: There are many other surprising effects we cover in the Science Says platform. For example, branding a product alone can increase a person’s performance: people ran 20% further when their sneakers had a Nike logo on them.

Anticipating an upcoming experience increases the enjoyment of it when it happens

Topics: Customer Experience
For: Both B2C and B2B
Research date: October 2018
Universities: Cornell University, University of Southern California.

📈 Recommendation

Create a feeling of anticipation and excitement to an experience (e.g. videos of a holiday destination), a service (e.g. how relaxed they will feel after the massage) or a new product (e.g. teaser, feature descriptions, reviews from early users). Encourage people to imagine what they’ll like about the actual experience (e.g. happy, relaxed, excited).

People will enjoy the experience and like your product more. 

🎓 Findings

• People enjoy the experience of a service or product more if they anticipate the feeling of using it in advance (e.g. watch previews and imagine how they’d feel using the product).

• Across 6 experiments and a survey with 71,929 people hotel customers, researchers found that:

  • People remembered an experience (e.g. spring break travel) as 9.6% more enjoyable when they were asked to savor the upcoming experience (e.g. think about how they’d feel about it beforehand) vs simply asked to imagine it (e.g. thinking about the activities they’d do)

  • People who watched a movie trailer related to the feature film they were about to view (e.g. a Toy Story trailer before a Toy Story short film) enjoyed the movie 8.6% more than those who saw a trailer unrelated to the feature film (e.g. a Minions trailer before a Toy Story short film)

  • After being given information about a video game and asked how much they thought they would enjoy it, people were 21% more likely to enjoy it (vs those who were just asked to wait)

• The effect is weaker if the product or service is low quality (e.g. lower enjoyment if the game is buggy vs not), and especially if expectations are low.

🧠 Why it works

• When we look forward to something, we anticipate the positive feelings of it. This makes us savor it more, creating a feeling of deep pleasure.

• Because of this positive feeling, anticipating an upcoming positive experience can even make us enjoy waiting for it more.

• While we’re anticipating the experience, we create strong positive memories about the upcoming event.

• These memories are reactivated when the event actually happens, making the experience feel even better.

📣 Meet your AI Social Media Team

Struggling to grow on social media? quso.ai is your all in one companion. 🚀

You can use quso.ai to:

• Post Videos Everyday: AI Clips, AI Captions, AI UGC ads, AI Videos, Carousels & more

• Grow on 7+ social platforms with AI Analytics & Planner in one place

• Remove Creative Stress: Use videos templates for ideas everyday

👉 Get 50% OFF all plans with code SCIENCESAYS

This announcement was sponsored. Want your brand here? Click here.

✋ Limitations

• The research focused on pleasurable experiences like travelling and video games. It’s unlikely that the effect is the same for experiences that lead to neutral feelings like mundane experiences (e.g. a shipment of new office supplies) or functional products (e.g. buying a vacuum cleaner).

• The experiments did not look at how the timing between anticipation and the actual experience affects people’s views. Savoring it too early is likely to backfire, especially if the experience gets delayed (e.g. waiting longer than expected in line for an appointment).

• The effect might be the opposite (e.g. anticipating leads to lower enjoyment) if waiting for consumption creates impatience or negative feelings (e.g. not enough items available when launching a new product) or if the actual experience doesn’t live up to the anticipation.

🏢 Companies using this

• Companies in different industries use different tactics to build anticipation, often using waiting lists and newsletters to build anticipation. Some take creative approaches to it.

• For example, BMW allows buyers to follow the assembly of their car and watch its progress. This creates anticipation and excitement, encouraging buyers to savor the upcoming experience of receiving their new car.

• SaaS and tech startups often share their journey of creating new products through “build in public” content on social media or emails, taking users alongside the whole developing process, which can create positive feelings of anticipation.

• In ecommerce, Jewelry brand Amabile involves customers in choosing the next products by asking for opinions on their social media channels and effectively co-creating products. 

• Tech companies often use conferences as a way to build anticipation. Recently, Figma used their yearly config conference to build anticipation in multiple stages and channels. During the event, they offered hands-on demos. For non-attendees worldwide, they hosted watch parties. This created hype which inspired content creators to share videos after the conference.

Nike created anticipation for their new running show technology with an immersive experience in Chicago, effectively creating positive memories about their new products, before they were commercialised.

⚡ Steps to implement

• Pinpoint stages where customers anticipate the product or service, such as booking, pre-purchase, or pre-experience phases. 

• For example, if you’re launching something new (e.g. a new software feature), you can develop engaging materials like trailers, previews, interactive guides, or personalized updates that highlight the upcoming experience.

• Use messaging that prompts people to focus on the pleasure of the upcoming experience, like asking them to imagine how enjoyable the experience will be.

• If your product or services are more functional and less emotional, focus on the satisfaction, relief, or peace of mind people will feel after using the product. For example, you can talk about the ease of completing a task or the comfort of solving a problem.

• Regularly share updates, behind the scenes content, or previews of what’s coming next to keep the excitement alive and the customer engaged.

🔍 Study type

Lab and online experiments, field experiment (with 141 savoring a travel experience) and market observation (satisfaction surveys of 71,929 customers of J.D. Power Hotel)

📖 Research

Savoring an Upcoming Experience Affects Ongoing and Remembered Consumption Enjoyment. Journal of Marketing (October 2018)

🏫 Researchers

• HaeEun Helen Chun. Cornell University

• Kristin Diehl. University of Southern California

• Deborah J. MacInnis. University of Southern California

Remember: This is a scientific discovery. In the future it will probably be better understood and could even be proven wrong (that’s how science works). It may also not be generalizable to your situation. If it’s a risky change, always test it on a small scale before rolling it out widely.

Here is how else Science Says can help your marketing:

• 📈 Join the Science Says Platform to unlock all 250+ insights, real-world case studies, and exclusive playbooks

• 📘 Boost your sales and profits with topic-specific Science-based Playbooks (e.g. Pricing, Ecommerce, SaaS, AI Best Practices)

• 🔬 Get on-demand evidence to make better decisions. My team of PhDs and I regularly help leading brands in FMCG (e.g. Mars), retail, and tech. Reach out here.

🎓 It took 3 of us 12.5 hours to accurately turn this 16-page research paper into this 3min insight. 

If you enjoyed it please share it with a friend, or share it on LinkedIn and tag me (Thomas McKinlay), I’d love to engage and amplify! 

If this was forwarded by a friend you can subscribe below for $0 👇