Manizesto

If it’s been a year since you had a bowl of your favorite ice cream and you buy one tonight, my guess is that you’ll find it highly satisfying. But if you eat another bowl tonight it will be less satisfying than the first; your third bowl will be less satisfying still. No matter how much you love that kind of ice cream, I bet eating 20 bowls of it in one evening will have a pretty strong negative effect rather than a positive one.

This is true, of course, unless you wait a period of time before having the subsequent bowl. Twenty bowls of ice cream over 20 years is nothing. Time heals appetites. I call this behavior the Brain Freeze Effect.

The Brain Freeze Effect
The first indulgence is very satisfying, and as long as enough time passes, subsequent ones can also be very satisfying, but do it too much in too short a time-frame and satisfaction levels will plummet. Also, the people that wait long periods of time before indulging will, for the most part, still have satisfying experience on their first one. In other words, it’s not likely that time has a negative effect, at least under normal circumstances.

What does this mean?
Don’t expect customers to buy the same thing right after they bought one. They need time to build up desire again, even if they love your products. Also, don’t worry too much if a customer doesn’t buy on the first go-round of an offer. They may just not be ready yet.

Thirdly, the theory holds true of all types of ice cream, not just your favorite. Similar products to the ones customers just bought will probably be just as ignored if you try too soon. You can influence these tendencies to some extent by changing your time (Limited Time Offer!) and types of ice cream (Now in Black!) variables, but be careful not to do this too much.

The recovery time customers need will depend on a lot of factors, so test, test, test.

Photo by artfulblogger