So, yes, the trailer and the film are two separate experiences – and certainly on larger films, the trailer will require expectation management. And you can argue that in trilogies, each film is a separate experience of the whole trilogy. The important thing to remember, again, is “what is your end”? If the trailer is a marketing channel for the film, then it is subservient, and can only use the parts of the film.

Managing expectations before a trailer is then not only about marketing material, but about what has already gone before the film. Consider Marvel films – because there are already comics, there is far more anticipation.

Your final point is interesting – and I believe that are now able to begin tangible measure expectation through sentiment and intent analysis online. This means monitoring tweets, facebook, blogs, and seeing how the sentiment and intent changes through a campaign.

As a framework it seems to me a logical progression and does seem to answer the question of how Apple has all of us wondering what's coming next but how do businesses get over the fear of over-commitment to expectation management? That is to say, if we have to manage the expectations for the movie through the trailer, then we must manage the expectations of the trailer.. BUT THROUGH WHAT? and whatever we use as the preamble to the trailer needs to be managed so that we do not lose the customer early on.

Could it be argued that, with the above in mind, there are diminishing returns to expectation because it requires a lot of investment upfront for an investment that cannot be tangibly measured and even it if could be measured, what measure indicates captures the success or failure of the strategy since the outcome of expectation management is a FEELING? Shall we at this point use sales a as a metric? I think that argument was defeated yesterday.

So what is the way forward?