Last week I wrote a post about my disappointment with Disneyland while visiting their “Holidays at Disney” display. In the post I detailed how crushed my children were to find that their holiday (Hanukkah) had little to no positive representation at Disneyland. I got a lot of feedback, ranging from sympathy and horror, to religious commentary about the secularization of Christmans, to anger about our “unrealistic expectations” of Disney and explanation from some about how holly and trees are for all holidays. Which was all somewhat beside the point I was trying to make.
I want to be clear here and move beyond Disney because I am not rewriting that post. But for the record, It wasn’t really about religion, culture or Christmas. It was about the expectations. The tragically, thoughtlessly mismanaged expectations.
When someone says “Holidays”, in the plural, I expect more than one holiday. A simple concept for most, but for Disney this year, a colossal fail. There is only one holiday represented in the park. Call it bait and switch, call it stupid, it really doesn’t matter. It all ends with a five year old in tears and a pissed off parent.
I hate to pick on Disney though, and they certainly don’t have the corner on stupid marketing moments. Messages that deceive are displayed on a regular basis in a theater near you. In the form of movie trailers.
A perfect example: the trailers for “Marley and Me”. Light hearted family comedy. Jennifer Aniston, Owen Wilson, silly dog. Romping on the beach. Fun! Those of us who’d read the book raised our eyebrows wisely, knowing something was left out of the trailer. Something big. The rest of us went to see a comedy that holiday weekend and came out sobbing and longing for prozac.
Movie trailers misguide us all the time. Dramas are represented as comedies, plotless masturbation is sold as epic drama or a legendary tale. In the case of “Where the Wild Things Are” we were served up a film positioned to be a touching literary classic. We took the kids. They sat through two hours gratuitous dysfunctional family flatulence. In short, we thought Where the Wild Things Are stank. But perhaps I would have felt differently, if I’d been properly prepared. I might not have hated it so much if I had not brought my five year along to plumb the depths of conflicting human emotions, and witnessed his tears when the bird’s arm was ripped off. At the very least I could have made an informed decision to see the film with other adults only.
My poor five year old is going to be a savvy consumer one day. He’s already been disillusioned by Disney and Sendak. Who will he trust?
If you haven’t been disappointed in the theater, it’s surely happened in a restaurant. Who hasn’t ordered something off the menu that sounded (or even looked marvelous in a photo) only to be handed a plate of slop that seems completely alien to what you thought you ordered. The “generous portion” of “fresh imported gourmet” delicacies turned out to be a bowl of three greasy supermarket olives. Oops.
The end result of mismanaged expectations is almost always the same. Anger. We get angry because we parted with cash and invested our time, and got our own (or worse, our children’s) hopes up for an experience we/they did not get to have. This makes us feel duped.
Worst case scenario we view the deception as deliberate, a bait and switch scheme designed to take us as fools, parting us with our money. The brand is then a bully/shyster in our eyes. A malevolent beast. We tell our friends. They tell their friends… Best case, we think that the marketing, pr, sales, management etc are all pretty lousy at what they do to have allowed such a gross oversight to occur. Do you want to shop at stupidmart? Exactly. Neither do I.
Mismanaged expectations are dangerous and destructive to brands. It’s something to keep in mind at all times when you are working on a campaign, no matter the size of your company. We all want to highlight the positive and make our appeal as broad as possible. But in doing so, are we creating false expectations about our product or service? Are our claims and suggestions going to pan out as promised for the majority of people? Are the details being glossed over truly minor enough to be dismissed?
I challenge you to consider if your brand’s message and positioning is going to mislead consumers. If it is deliberately doing so, I recommend you rethink that strategy. Karma exists, even in marketing. Social media has made word of mouth a more powerful and immediate thing. It’s not worth pissing off the people you want as customers. Ever. People are watching, waiting to comment. They expect more of you, and so do I!
Rest assured that I will call you on your campaign if your mismanagement of expectations makes a five year old cry. Particularly if that five year old is mine.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Great points. I think that brands need to be especially careful when their “mom outreach” involves the whole family. As a blogger, I’ve accepted more than one product that mysteriously never arrived at my house. For me it’s out of site, out of mind for the most part. But when I’ve told my kids that “X” is coming our way and it never does, they never forget. Which is why my older boy will never buy a Firefly phone.
Again, great points about expectations, but I think the thing that will stick with me most after clicking away is the term “plotless masturbation”. I’m going to have to try to work that into a conversation this week.
Part of the problem is the false belief on the part of some businesses that they can be everything to everyone. In the case of Disney and its holiday promotion it certainly seems like they could have fairly easily included some representation of Hanukkah, Ramadan and Kwanzaa. When retailers in particular try to appeal to everyone all they wind up doing is watering down their brand and losing customers. The luxury market comes to mind. Saks and Neiman Marcus are struggling to figure out how to survive the economic downturn without sacrificing their identity. Both of these retailers are planning on introducing lower priced product under their own label. What will happen when someone buys a sweater from Saks or Neimans that falls apart because the quality isn’t quite as high? I am not sure that even when you pay a lower price the expectation of quality that comes with reputation is lowered. As a retailer myself I realize that none of this is easy. Thanks for the topic. I really enjoy your blog!
There’s some good in every situation. Next time try to write some good, along with the negative. It’s not impossible, and it will help you and your readers see a glass 1/2 every once in a while.
1/2 full*
You are quite right Stephen. I was just thinking the same thing today… about how I wanted to make sure to quickly complete a post I am working on about how some companies are doing a great job with their marketing and with managing expectations. There are many companies out there doing an excellent job, worthy of kudos.
I think it’s interesting that I didn’t notice a lot of this type of stuff until I had children, and I entered every situation with bated breath, hoping for the best.
Good, thought provoking post.
I can relate to this post so well. We are not big movie goers in my family. In fact, I can count the number of movies my children have gone to on one hand. But in the past month we have seen 2 movies that I have been disappointed in. I took my kids, ages 7 and 5 to see A Christmas Carol, and The Princess and The Frog. Now, being a high school English teacher, I am fully aware of the plot of A Christmas Carol. But since the movie was rated PG, I clearly thought the “ghosts” references would be appropriate for small children. How wrong I was! My daughter cried during most of the movie because of her fear of the ghosts. And my son kept MY hands over his eyes the entire time. Let’s just say I was not a happy camper. And then, I give the theater another chance when we go see the Princess and Frog. Well, If I had known that my kids would get a crash course in voodoo dolls, witchcraft, and demons, we would have passed on that movie! This has taught me to stay out of the movie theaters and get a blockbuster card so I can preview the movies BEFORE my children watch them! I definately have to learn to manage my expectations!
Might be a good opportunity to teach your children that building expectations about most things will lead to disappointment. Your expectations are the issue not everyone else. Lose the expectations and you will not experience the disappointments so heavily.
I’m not sure what to say Edwina. Should we teach them that no one is reliable, that everyone lies and the tooth fairy, santa and easter bunny are big corporate scam/lie at the same time? I believe in balance. I’ve taught my kids to hold a healthy amount of skepticism. But society functions on expectations being met. I am not willing to do away with that entirely.