The Impact of Previews on the Enjoyment of Multicomponent Multimedia Experiences

Previews, ranging from movie trailers to music samplers, commonly preface the consumption of extended multimedia experiences such as movies, television shows, and music. Given the ubiquity of such previews, one might wonder if they have downstream effects on the final consumption experience. For example, could seeing a movie’s trailer change how much consumers later enjoy the movie? There is some theoretical precedence for the notion that previews, and the information processing they engender, can qualitatively affect downstream consumption experiences. After all, consumer experiences are to a significant degree contextually and subjectively constructed within consumers’ minds, often under the guidance of marketers, rather than objective experiences (Alba and Williams 2013; Ariely and Norton 2009). A growing literature on marketing placebo effects also shows that information processing taking place before consumption can qualitatively change the subsequent enjoyment of an experience (Lee, Frederick, and Ariely 2006; Plassmann et al. 2007; Shiv, Carmon, and Ariely 2005). The rationale behind these and related findings is that pre-experiential information processing can activate expectations that become salient in consumers’ minds, and change how they approach upcoming experiences (Mandel and Nowlis 2008; Shiv et al. 2005; Wadhwa, Shiv, and Nowlis 2008). Could previews have an analogous impact on the consumption of multimedia experiences? Could the nature of the preview affect how much consumers enjoy an upcoming experiences?