Surprise as a marketing tool: customer delight might not always lead to long-term satisfaction and loyalty. (Marketing).

As companies increasingly turn to emotion-based marketing to help retain their customers, they frequently employ the element of surprise--such as offering unanticipated awards to members of loyalty programs. But according to a June 2002 working paper, such tactics often don't work as intended. The paper is by Adam Lindgreen, an assistant professor of marketing at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, and Joelle Vanhamme, an assistant professor of consumer behavior and marketing communication at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

"To Surprise or Not To Surprise Your Customers: The Use of Surprise as a Marketing Tool" conducts a thorough …