A conversation came up the other day while I was having dinner with Master Lee and a bunch of my fellow Hwarang brothers and sisters immediately following our MUSA (warrior) challenge involving grappling and weapon sparring.  The conversation led me to discussing what I read in the book, “Predictably Irrational” on the topic of setting the proper expectation.

In the book, it talks about how when a person goes into an experience with certain positive expectations, those positive expectations can help make the actual experience that much better – to the point where it’s better than if the person had NO such expectations.

In essence, expectations can help make the actual experience that much better…  But on the flip side, as marketers, we know that hype can damage your business.  It may be because people’ll be able to smell that B.S. hype a mile away and avoid  whatever you are selling like the plague, or your product won’t be able to live up to the hype.

So then the question arises, how do you distinguish “hype” from setting the “proper expectations”?

As an online marketer, I had to ponder this one a bit.

Hype vs. Proper Expectations

What is hype?  According to Dictionary.com, it is defied as:

to intensify (advertising, promotion, or publicity) by ingenious or questionable claims, methods, etc.

The keywords here are “ingenious” and “questionable”.  In other words, to get the consumer to buy through whatever means necessary – cheat, embellish, lie, etc.

*tsk tsk* I see “hype” as trying to stir up someone’s emotions, getting them all excited, by promising them something that cannot be delivered.

On the other hand, what is setting the proper expectations?  Simply put, it’s about telling them the facts and nothing but the facts.  Telling them realistically what they can realistically expect to happen as the result of their purchasing (and putting to use) your product.

Now… are you explicitly PROMISING them anything?  No, you are merely telling them the results they can expect to realistically get.

Going onto Twitter, here are what some of my friends had to say:

Ben Mapp – hype=promoting unrealistic results for most; setting expectations=giving benchmark for likely results for most

Miss Tabares – hype lends itself to exaggeration; setting expectations is more realistic, like short term, achievable goals

Malika Duke – setting expectations sounds great, hype sounds like trying to sell by saying ANYTHING it takes

What do you think is the distinction between hype and setting expectations?

Raymond Fong