What's in the box? The power of anticipation in the customer experience!

The businesses that market in the place they do business, more than the business they do, were really, really successful. Not just the place, but the businesses themselves. It is June 14th.

Now, dates are very important in this episode of The Loyalty Loop. Because we're going to explore the power of anticipation...

The businesses that market in the place they do business, more than the business they do, were really, really successful. Not just the place, but the businesses themselves. It is June 14th.

Now, dates are very important in this episode of The Loyalty Loop. Because we're going to explore the power of anticipation. Your ability to build suspense. And we're going to do it with a box.

The mystery box

I'm going to tell you what I've been up to in the last 10 days…

It all started before I left for Houston. In fact, it all started before I left for Lambertville, New Jersey. For weeks, I've actually been doing research into mystery boxes.

Now if you're not familiar with a mystery box is, this is what a mystery box is, it's an item that you can purchase for a set fee or on an auction, but you have no idea what's in it.

There are 36 thousand mystery boxes available for you to purchase on Ebay, Amazon, and Etsy combined. They've actually been around a long time, since the early 2000s, but recently there's been a huge increase in the availability and the purchase of mystery boxes.

Let's go onto Ebay, and search "mystery box”. There are listings such as 'Mystery box, a surprise for you, $5.69’. There’s one with 20 new items. The description just says: "It'll have random items. Take a chance and see what you get.” It's from a toy company, so, I'm imagining it's toys you’ll get.

Increasing anticipation

It should be here between June eighth and June 13th. It's now Jun fourth. So, I've got to wait and see what I get. I'll check the tracking as it comes in.

Now after I ordered my box, I headed out to Lambertville, New Jersey. Flew all the way to Houston, Texas… all of this time, I've been waiting for my box to arrive.

I'm pretty psyched because it arrived yesterday. And I've been waiting and tracking, and checking for the status of this box ever since I ordered it. So I think we should open it.

Now why would people purchase a box like this, a mystery box, and have no idea what's inside? Well, I think the answer to this question will actually help us build better experiences. Because experiences are more valuable than buying things. And the experience of buying a mystery box is fantastic.

The power of consumer momentum 

Let's do some back of the box power play. I want to explain to you the power of consumer momentum and how it relates to the experience you provide.

Imagine you have a y-axis which represents enthusiasm. It goes from a scale of zero (couldn't care less what's in this box) and a hundred (I can't wait to see what's in this box!)

The X axis represents time. Time from the minute you order the mystery box.

Now, anytime you order something online, you start at a 50. So the minute I ordered this mystery box, my enthusiasm level was a 50. I wasn’t unbelievably excited so I was somewhere in the middle. And what happened over the last 10 days, was that my anticipation slowly raised. I was wondering what's in the box. I felt the need to fill the curiosity gap. My need for closure raised. I got a tracking number so as time went on I kept checking the progress.

I was so excited. When I was in Houston for the weekend, I wondered when the box was going to arrive. When I arrived home, I checked again and at this point, it was almost at my doorstep. It was out for delivery, and I couldn't be more enthusiastic. I was at 100 for this mystery box. Now the moment it arrived, I entered a new phase… the honeymoon phase!

So what was in the box? A cross-vehicle rocket system, a Disney Princess four-pack flavored lip balm, a Tamagotchi and the final thing… a Little Live Pet.

So this is the honeymoon phase. At the very top is the moment it arrives. to the moment I empty the box. It's a very short moment in time, and then my enthusiasm starts to wane in the next phase.

The anticipation phase

So let's talk about the two most important phases.

This is the anticipation phase. And the more you can think 'mystery box', and raise anticipation for your product or service arriving, or for your experience that you're going to provide, the more excited your customer or client will be.

The honeymoon phase

In the honeymoon phase, the second phase, you've got to deliver on your promise. And herein lies the problem with most mystery boxes.

The amount of anticipation they build, just because it's inherent in the experience, not knowing what's inside the box, almost never matches up to the experience of the unboxing. And, while I'm excited about all the stuff I got, I'm not as excited as I was when the box arrived.

So, what's the lesson for us marketers? The lesson for us is, instead of worrying about trying to get your box there faster, instead of trying to make sure that your experience is as rapid as possible, maybe what we should be doing is raising anticipation for the experience in small little doses.

We should be creating our own mystery box experience.