Decision Utility
Why people overestimate how happy a future purchase will make them and how to use decision utility in your marketing.
In this issue
Hey 👋 The Crew here.
We’re fighting off the seasonal flu right now, and honestly? It’s a lot like Q4 marketing performance.
Some days you’re hitting targets. Other days you’re flat on your back wondering what went wrong.
The trick is riding it out with patience, hydration, and data. Lots of data.
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Humans are terrible at predicting future feelings.
That might be a pill hard to swallow, but it’s true. And you’ve probably experienced it.
For example, you feel pumped when you’re buying a concert ticket. When the day comes, you’re exhausted. You’d actually cancel if you could.
Or you buy an awesome gadget, imagining its life-changing capabilities. Three weeks later, you might as well name it “Dust Collector 3000.”
Sound familiar?
Many psychologists, including the legend Daniel Kahneman, have described Decision Utility as the perceived happiness we expect from a choice before making it.
In a 1992 study, he asked participants to eat the same yogurt for eight days and predict how much they’d enjoy it over time.
The result? People were awful at predicting. They thought their enjoyment would stay high, but it plummeted as they got bored.
Funnily enough, this is exactly where you can make your campaigns more effective.
Three ways you can leverage The Planning Fallacy
Sell the peak moment, not the process
Consumers often buy based on the idea of the outcome.
Think about vacation ads. Or Airbnb.
Airbnb won’t show you airport lines. They will sell the fantasy of waking up in a Tuscan villa or a beachfront bungalow.
So whatever you’re selling, sell imagined experience.
Peloton sells the vision of your energized, accomplished future self. In some ads, they even go extra mile and sell you at the peak of your powers, feeling accomplished:
One glance at this ad and you already feel the rush of work out excitement.
Use testimonials that describe the emotional payoff
Yes, yes, we know that using testimonials is an obvious tip.
But here we’re not talking about testimonials per se. We’re talking about showing reviews of other people that have experienced the high.
Testimonials that say something made them “feel amazing” have a bigger impact than those that just say something is of “good quality.”
What you should do: Cherry-pick your social proof content that sprinkles in some positive personal feelings. It may trigger Decision Utility and impact your potential customers’ decision.
Check out how Headspace emphasizes the feeling:
While they mention a few features, their testimonials focus on the clarity of peace users feel.
That kind of predicted satisfaction drives signups.
Give users a taste of the experience
The best way to boost Decision Utility? Give people a test of the outcome before they buy.
If you’re able to make your customers feel the reward early, they won’t even have to imagine it. They will connect their positive feeling with what they think they’ll always feel in the future.
So give them a small taste of the reward before they buy.
A meditation app can help users feel calm in one free session. Car retailers will let you go on a test drive. Phone retailers will have a test device you can feel up and try out.
Even physical brands are finding ways to leverage this. Sephora, for example, does this brilliantly with its virtual try-on feature:
Before buying, shoppers can see how a shade looks on their face and get a small rush of confidence that comes with it.
That little emotional preview makes the full purchase feel like a natural next step, not a risk. And this little addition increased Sephora’s sales by 38%, according to some reports.
Worth a try, right?
AI NEWS: The Deep View newsletter distills the latest AI developments into a daily 5-minute read, trusted by over 600,000 readers at Google, Meta, and Microsoft. It’s free, fits into your morning routine, and keeps decision makers current without the seminar circuit. Subscribe here.*
AI TACTICS: Running low on ideas? Get one easy-to-implement AI tactic delivered every Saturday with real examples you can swipe. It’s a low-effort way to learn, save time, and get better marketing results, fast. Join 15k+ marketers for free.*
INSTAGRAM:Let’s circle back those Reels. Instagram just rolled out a Watch history feature that lets you scroll through the last 30 days of Reels you’ve watched. If your audience can easily find and reshare your Reels, your content gets a second, or even third life. Yay.
TIKTOK: Remember the TikTok deal? Well, it’s reportedly being finalized. The US Treasury Secretary says all details are ironed out for the $14B transaction, and we’re just waiting for Trump and Xi to sign off. No official word on what those details are. A new algo change, maybe?
AI MARKETING: Big brand feel minus the budget? Google Labs just launched Pomelli, an AI tool that helps SMBs create on-brand social media campaigns without burning through cash or design resources. Sounds interesting, and worth a test.
ICYMI, last time we looked at Planning Fallacy.
The “Peak moment” Crew
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