Weeks ago, I took my children to a party. They had a blast and left with a bag of goodies. One of them declared what a great day it was and how happy they were.
On the way home, she discovered her sister has a coveted toy that is not in her goodie bag (the contents were different). She starts pouting, becomes upset and spits out the famous words,
“This is the worst day of my life”
I wondered what happened. How did that happy day turn into the worst day of their lives in a heartbeat?
Then I watched this presentation by Nobel laureate and founder of behavioral economics Daniel Kahneman about experience versus memory (below).
There are many take-aways from this presentation but the focus is this. When people think about how happy they are, or how happy they are with something like a vacation (or a product), the answer people give is not based on the real experience but the memory of the experience.
While we aren’t children, the story above is pretty common regardless of age. I know I have gone through similar situations many times. An awesome day is ‘bad’ because it was tainted by one bad experience. Suddenly, the rest of the hours of good experiences counted for nothing.
Watch this presentation (below). Lots of interesting insights that lead me to think. What we should be working towards is a memorable contact with our customers, not so much a good experience.
What are your thoughts?
Great article Lynette,
I often think about good memories. Anticipation is much the same. We look forward to a vacation. When we’re in the moment it’s nice but we don’t seem to appreciate it as much as we anticipated. Once home for a few weeks we pine at the memories, and appreciate what we experienced. So it appears that the anticipation and memory are more pleasurable than the reality. Odd aren’t we?
Yup, we are odd creatures indeed and that’s why I love to learn about things like these. Our complex psychology and how it affects what we purchase and do. Deep, yet intriguing stuff.
Not only contacts any memorable moments are very powerful..
Memories is something that we can’t get rid of, especially one that have very deep connection to our heart. For example, I have this memories with my childhood friend. I even keep the toys he gave that day. It’s odd, isn’t it?
It does seem strange what we tend to remember. Just yesterday I was telling someone about something I did when I was 10! It was a highly emotionally charged situation too. I think when there is emotion involved the memories then to be stronger.
That is very True Ed!
Anticipation means that we are making an expectations that might not possibly happens which causes disappointment.
It’s been a pleasure reading your post!
We have to ask what constitutes memory. It also stems from experience. As for getting consumers to associate the brand with good memories, it happens when the brand is around during an important time in their lives.
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