In the most recent guest talk of our Research Seminar Series of the Marketing Department on the 21^st of November Professor Leonard Lee from the National University of Singapore demonstrated that money is not the only thing that consumers might bank. Presenting his most current findings on consumers’ “banking of happiness”, Lee argues that merely anticipating a future sad event may motivate consumers to “accumulate happiness” (i.e. watching funny videos, listening to cheerful music)  in order to enhance their ability to cope with the  anticipated sadness - similarly to how consumers would save money for future expenses. Importantly, his research strikingly demonstrates that this mechanism is future-oriented and goes beyond simple mood repairment (that is, the tendency to compensate for one’s current negative mood by focusing on positive tasks or information).

We thank Leonard Lee for this very interesting introduction into this topic and we hope that he was able to bank many happy moments at the WU in Vienna. We are looking forward to welcoming him back at the Marketing Department in the future.

Johanna Palcu