For a zombie to live/die a successful life/death, his basic animal instincts must trigger very explicit sets of expectations, or sets of rules that the Zombie blindly follows. For example, after breaking and crawling through the window of a house at 2am, a zombie expects there to be a human or three on the couch watching re-runs of MASH. This is an expectation necessary for zombie survival, and is born of years of experience of biting and eating people.
So on the rare occasion that a Zombie stumbles into a window, and is greeted by empty furniture and an angry guard dog who will cause him nothing but trouble, the Zombie instinct unconsciously asks itself; "Is this in line with my expectations? Did I expect to be greeted by this mean dog?"... If the answer is no, then the Zombie will leave back out the window from whence he came, and move on to the next house unsatisfied and even hungrier than before.
In this way, your Consumer is like our Zombie, except possibly less hungry, and with slightly different motivations. Consumers have expectations as well, and while less primal, are equally as unconscious as those of a Zombie. It is our job as responsible advertisers to set those expectations when directing a Zombie Consumer to an online experience.
Be it a microsite, blog, facebook, YouTube, or any other digital destination that I don't even know about yet; your ad must clearly communicate either conceptually or literally or both, exactly what the consumer should expect when he gets there. And then deliver on that expectation loud, clear, and quickly. For example, if you tell him that you're digital destination is going to help him find a widget, then don't make him find a widget himself when he gets there. Do it for him.
If you don't do this, then the consumer will leave, unsatiated and pissed off that his expectations were not met. Consumers are no different than Zombies, give them what they expect, or they'll never come see you again... or they'll bite your head off.
* For the above metaphor to work appropriately, you must first agree that getting bitten by a Zombie is a good thing.
ZOMBIE ATTACK DEATH PROBABILITY CALCULATIONS
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