Blog 2: Expectations of Experiences

I believe the primary lesson that Dan Ariely wanted to teach us in Predictably Irrational was that expectations prior to an experience truly does affect how we perceive that experience to be. He, along with other colleagues, conducted some beer studies to prove this, and this was the main example that Ariely provided in his explanation. (Although I’m not sure if I quite agree with all of it. I will discuss this shortly). Their results showed that people who knew that vinegar was added to the beer before they tasted the two beers found the beer distasteful in comparison to those who did not know anything about the difference in the two beers or those who found out after tasting the beers that vinegar was added to the generally preferred beers. It actually surprised me that this was the result. I would’ve thought that those who found out about the vinegar being added to the beer after tasting them both would have changed their perceptions about what they thought of the beer. The reason is that, in my experience, people often change their minds about how an experience was to them once they’ve discussed it with someone else or a negative association is correlated to the experience, (such as vinegar).

I really enjoyed this article because immediately ideas came flooding to mind about how marketers could use this information to gain valuable insights. I was specifically thinking about my organization, Nourish International, which I’m a part of. I will get to how I plan on using this information in a little while. Conducting more blind tests, or tests in which the brand is identified, in different situations would truly help marketers find out what’s important for their customers. From Ariely’s studies, we can see that expectations prior to experiences are SUPER important for customers. Therefore, it is important for marketers to create a positive mindset about an experience or product prior to the customer testing it out. Ariely’s coffee shop experiment really highlighted this. It was interesting that how the odd condiments displayed changed how people enjoyed the coffee consumed, even though the customers did not even use the condiments. We now know that it is not only the product that is important to sell, but the presentation of how we are going to sell the product or create an experience. A significant amount of time should be invested to find out how to create experiences with the products that will be enjoyable for the consumers, even if it isn’t the experience that we are necessarily selling.












An example that I would like to write about relates to Nourish International-Austin Chapter, a fairly new student organization at UT. We conduct “Hunger Lunches” on campus, in which we sell food to raise money to work on sustainable international development projects. We have had our fair share of successful and unsuccessful Hunger Lunches. But what we’ve learned is that HOW we display the food affects whether the students would even want to give cash to taste the food. Nikki’s pizza in Dobie is quite popular, and A LOT of students buy pizza from there. We thought selling this pizza would be successful, since it’s popular. However, it was the most unsuccessful Hunger Lunch that we’ve had. Why? In hindsight, we saw that students passing by saw the pizza boxes sitting in the open. We didn’t have pizza box warmers, so obviously the pizza was going to go cold pretty fast. It was a sort of gloomy day, and it didn’t seem that people wanted to stay outside for too long. Even us members didn’t have much enthusiasm about selling the pizza! However, when we sold no-brand quesadillas – we had great success! We made the quesadillas outside, which immediately brought attention to our table and it was a VERY successful Hunger Lunch. People passing by saw the smiles of the servers, the fresh, hot quesadillas, and decided it might be worth investing in. However, in all honestly – the pizza was much better tasting than the quesadillas were.
I can use what I’ve learned in this chapter to figure out how to make our Hunger Lunches more successful. We should create expectations for students that our food will be amazing. Our display must be enticing. This creation in their minds about how GREAT the food will be will make them like the food more. That way, it will be much more likely that those students will return during our next Hunger Lunch. However, if we don’t give them great expectations prior to them tasting the food, they might not like the food as much, resulting in a lost potential valuable returning customer!

However, I do think knowledge before experience does in fact influence neural activity in a greater way than knowledge just after the experience. Why? Because we have already had the experience and determined how we felt about it. Once that’s set, it’s created a mindset about how we believed the experience to be. However, many people’s notions are shifted upon 1) hearing how other people have perceived the experience to be for them, and/or 2) being imparted knowledge that would have previously affected the way we would have thought our experience to be based on what we felt about that particular knowledge prior to the experience.

I don’t think it’s just the expectations that change our sensory perception. What changes how we feel about a certain experience could be attributed to how we think we are supposed to fit the social norm. We think we are “supposed” to like what other people think are like and not like what other people don’t like or is not considered good.


I remember when Napoleon Dynamite came out. I feel that if any individual watched this movie by themselves and had to give a review of it, most people would give poor reviews. I know I would have thought it was a pretty terrible movie! I heard a lot about the movie before I watched it, and it was so hyped up in the market. It was supposed to be dumb, but hilarious. I watched it with people who had already seen it and loved it. They laughed throughout the movie – and I laughed. But in retrospect, I don’t think I would’ve liked it if my expectations of it being funny weren’t so high. Then I thought of a Hindi movie I watched on the day it came out. I really didn’t think it was that great. But for the next few days, everyone kept telling me how the movie was so well-made and how great it was. My perceptions about how much I did not like the movie changed…for some reason, I started to think that I did like it!

This was a great article, which I believe will truly help us understand how to not only improve the value of products/experiences in people’s lives, but will also help us understand how to help customers gain a more lasting happier experience with a product.

Blog 1: Cracking the Coconut

I see a world full of color. I don’t particularly like the crazy fast paced life, like and unlike many others. I wish there would be a movement of “let’s slow down, long enough to actually notice other people.” Perhaps by doing this, we would be able to in fact improve the lives of “the other 90%,” as Jeff Mulhausen spoke about in class. (Side note: That was one great talk. It really provided some insights to us students about how we can make a difference if we open our eyes to the problems and not just try to reach for the money…) As was talked about in the “Persona Lifecycle” article, understanding the user is extremely important into developing helpful personas and truly addressing the issues. So let me provide some deeper insights into someone like me that could be valuable for marketers:

1.) Because of traveling to many countries, including England, Mozambique, Argentina, and Guatemala, I have become a more culturally understanding person. There are many others, like me, who are interested in what other cultures can teach us, which broadens our horizons. We might even be mentally transformed by what we see and learn. Not only do I enjoy spending time in these countries, but I also like bringing home various souvenirs. Traveling so much is not an option for many. However, some brilliant minds have brought the experiences to the customer. I think a great example of this is The Rainforest Café, where the customer can experience being in a “rainforest” while enjoying their dinner.

2.) I am a people person. People persons enjoy meeting people and understanding the world from different perspectives. However, I would rather have fewer deeper intimate relationships than many superficial ones. (I think this would be a preference for most people). I think in this day, the word friendship has lost some of its deeper value. I mean, people don’t really have “1,346 friends” like Facebook says. Creating an experience or product that brings more value to relationships would work well for people like me. For example, Argentina really markets their “Día de los Amigos” or “Friendship Day”. I studied abroad in Argentina for 3 months, and I remember that many stores were selling products specifically for Día de los Amigos. These products helped reinforce the special bonds in friendship.



3.) I am a health nut, and I love my smoothies. Sometimes getting all the nutrients essential for a healthy diet is hard for a college student. I am constantly trying to find the most effective/efficient way to get my daily nutrients in “on-the-go” drinks. Lately, I’ve been using “Amazing Grass” in juices, but I’m still looking for something tastier than wheatgrass!

4.) Tae Kwon Do made me a pretty perseverant/disciplined individual. Gyms can draw people like me in, especially when they show their dedication to making me, their customer, satisfied with their facilities and trainers.



5.) I have a heart for those in need. I am part of Nourish International – Austin Chapter, in which we raise money through on-campus ventures to work on an international development project, which we implement in the summers. By being a part of this organization, I have become more aware of global issues, and I am always looking for ways to get involved in projects locally or globally. There are probably non-profits who are looking for people like this. However, since there are SO many organizations that do “good work”, it’s important for them to market themselves and create an appeal that will show why people should help them out.

6.) Finding out new information brings me joy. The world just has so much information, and it’s a rare day when we don’t find out something new. However, while some college students dread studying for their classes, I actually have enjoyed many (but not all) of mine. Although I do like life to run at a slower pace, I love having quick access to information when I need it or want to find out something. (The IPod touch is a great invention for people like me…although I don’t have one yet!)

7.) Music sings to me 24/7, whether it’s in my head, while I’m playing guitar, piano, or sax. It can lift my spirits when I’m having a not-so-good day. Life has just been a bit sweeter with my IPod. It’s helped me when I just need to finish running another mile, or when I’d like to listen to soothing music before bed. Having this gadget so handy really makes me smile.



8.) Because my handwriting is messy and I write so many notes in my classes, it’s often been a challenge to go back and study my notes. In a few of my Spanish classes last year, I’d record the professor and go back and try to listen to the lecture again. But this method took too long. (It’s hard for me to catch everything in my Spanish classes, especially because it’s not my native language). I recently heard about this SmartPen. You can press record on your notebook and write down key notes from the lecture while the professor is talking. Then, when you want to go back and review what the professor was talking about, you just click on the word with your pen, and you can hear the context of those key words you wrote! This would most definitely be helpful for someone like me.

9.) I hold sleep dear to my heart, and having a comfortable bed just makes my day 10X better. I can tell that marketers have really tried to address the comforts needs of people like me from the wide variety of mattresses available, such as the Tempur-Pedic Matresses.

10.) I am an independent young woman. I don’t like to depend on anyone, except God, because I think it will make me a not self-sufficient person. However, I’ve realized that there are just certain things that will take me entirely too long to do, even with a manual, such as assembling wooden furniture. IKEA has done a great job of catering to people, like me, who want easy-to-assemble products.

Phew! Actually thinking about what’s important to me and valuable to marketers actually used a lot of brain power, but it certainly helped me learn more about myself.

New blog site!

I haven't actually blogged since Argentina, so I'm excited about this!