Barack and Beck … and You

What do President Obama and the Barack-bashing politicians at the recent CPAC conference have in common?

They gain power by marketing anticipation.

Americans’ love of being titillated is historic. Famous around the world for our “optimism,” we’re actually born hopers: anticipating that the Next Big Thing will live up to its promise, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.

Hearing Obama’s promise of real change energized his huge campaign rallies and election. Mere months later, the same promises draw crowds to “tea parties.” Crowds of folks hopin’ that some new group of professional hopers will do more than just sell us more hope.

Anticipation drives our daily decisions and feeds our consumer habits. We buy new services or products in anticipation of becoming more rich, serene, popular. Whatever.

Instant gratification is rarely what drives us. It’s the expectation of instant gratification. Curiosity has become a modern leader’s main commodity, because it sparks potential followers’ anticipation.

Anticipation isn’t only big in America. Dutch researchers recently talked to 974 people who had gone on a trip. Those who’d spent the most time planning it enjoyed it the most, and remembered the lead-up to their trip as the best part. The journey itself was almost secondary.

Social or new media and the internet make us more intensely expectant and fickle than ever. We can now live in a non-stop frenzy of discovery and expectation. To an extreme anticipator, achievement is something dreary that sometimes happens at work.

Presidents Bush and Obama and the Tea Party movement represent our consumer passion for anticipation. It drives up ratings for entertainment channels like Fox News, MSNBC, even C-Span. Simple news or information is never enough.

You’re in marketing. Does your marketing and sales material burst with anticipation, or at least make us all very curious?