What Shapes Customers' Reality—and What Are the Implications for Brands?
Jasmine Bina recently made a fascinating observation: our brains don’t passively absorb reality; they actively predict it. She notes in a conversation with Dr. Mark Miller, "our reality is mostly a prediction coming from inside our brains, not the outside world."
This isn’t just intriguing neuroscience; it has enormous implications for businesses, brands, and marketers.
At Decisions Studio, we see this phenomenon through the lens of expectation. Expectations aren't merely hopes or guesses; they're predictions our brains constantly generate about the future based on past experiences, cultural conditioning, and internal beliefs. They shape perceptions, choices, and ultimately, loyalty or churn.
The Power of Surprise
Bina emphasizes how anomalies—moments when predictions fail—are critical for belief and behavior change. Similarly, we've seen that unmet customer expectations (these cognitive "ruptures") dramatically influence decisions:
A cart abandoned
An app deleted
A conversation ignored
All these actions reflect prediction failures: the customer's reality didn't match the expectation their brain had constructed.
Managing the Expectation-Reality Gap
Given that our brains are wired to notice and react strongly to these expectation “ruptures,” managing expectations proactively becomes a strategic necessity. It isn't enough to react after expectations have been missed. Brands need to map, measure, and align with the predictions their customers' brains are already making.
At Decisions Studio, we help brands:
Map Expectations: Identify what customers predict will happen and why.
Benchmark Alignment: Measure how closely customer reality matches predictions.
Strategically Align: Build strategies around these insights to shape customer experiences proactively.
Belief Hygiene: Protecting Your Brand Reality
Jasmine also highlights "belief hygiene"—actively managing the belief structures that shape our realities. Brands must similarly practice expectation hygiene, deliberately aligning messaging, product experiences, and service delivery to match customers' internal predictions. This doesn't mean shielding customers from reality; it means thoughtfully curating the experiences that affirm positive expectations and gently recalibrate negative or incorrect ones.
Your Next Move: Predict and Shape
Your customers’ brains are constantly predicting the future. Your job is not to leave those predictions to chance. By understanding the cognitive science behind prediction and expectation, you can strategically shape reality itself.
Don’t just guess what your customers expect—know it. Because the brands that win tomorrow are the ones shaping customer realities today.
Inspired by insights shared by Jasmine Bina, CEO of Concept Bureau.