Consumer Perception

1
Chapter 4
Consumer Perception

• Consumer Perception

2
What Is Perception?

• The process of selecting, organizing, and
  interpreting sensation into a meaningful and
  coherent picture of the world
• How we see the world around us
• Two individuals may be exposed to the same
  stimuli but recognize, select, organize and
  interpret them differently based on their own
  needs, values and expectations

3

• Consumer perceptions are vital to marketers and
  often underlie the success or failure of products
  in the marketplace
• In order to understand how perception affects the
  marketing process, we need to understand some of
  the basic concepts that underlie the perceptual
  process

4
Three Concepts Related to Perception

• Exposure
• The act of deliberately or accidentally coming
  into contact with stimuli
• Attention
• The allocation of mental capacity to a stimulus
• Sensation
• Responses of the sensory receptors to a stimulus
  and transmission of this information to the brain

5
Sensation

• Sensation is the immediate and direct response of
  the sensory organs to simple stimuli
• The human organs that receive sensory inputs are
  called sensory receptors

6
Sensory Systems
7
Vision

• Vision is the dominant human sense, so we know
  more about it than the other senses
• Vision is known to stimulate physiological
  changes
• Warm hues (red, orange) increase blood pressure
  and heart rate
• Cool hues (blue, green) have the opposite effect
• Orange is used in fast food restaurants to
  increase hunger
• Blues and greens are used in hospitals to reduce
  patient anxiety

8
Smell

• Smell is the most direct of the senses
• No sense evokes memory more than smell
• Exposure to odors remembered from childhood can
  induce mood effects like those experienced in
  childhood
• Marketers understand this and build mood effects
  into products through odors

9

• Research has shown that a pleasant odor increases
  lingering and the amount of time spent in a store

10
Taste

• Taste has an obvious impact on the success of
  food and beverages
• North Americans appear to have a preference for
  fatty foods
• Thus the success of fast food and pizza
  restaurants
• Culture plays a powerful role in determining
  taste

11
Sound

• Sound, in the form of speech and music, is
  important to marketers
• Research shows a positive connection between the
  use of popular songs in ads and consumers recall
  of those ads
• Research also shows a positive connection between
  music and store sales and a negative connection
  between noise and sales

12
Touch

• Physical contact with a product often provides
  consumers with vital information

13
Input Variation and Sensation

• Changes in what we feel, hear, see, etc. at any
  given time
• As input increases, the ability to distinguish
  differences decreases
• As input decreases, the ability to distinguish
  differences increases

14

• Perceptual overloading the inability to perceive
  all competing stimuli for ones attention
• Perceptual vigilance the ability to disregard
  much of the stimulation one receives
• Consumers easily ignore ads when bombarded by
  them constantly

15
Perceptual Selection

• Each day consumers are surrounded by stimuli
• They are able to subconsciously exercise
  selectivity over which stimuli they perceive
• Which stimuli are selected depend on two major
  factors
• Consumers previous experience (what they are
  prepared to see)
• Their motives (needs, desires, interests, etc.)

16
Some Important Concepts Regarding Selective
Perception

• Selective Exposure
• Consumers actively seek out messages they find
  pleasant or are sympathetic to and avoid painful
  or threatening ones
• Selective Attention
• Consumers exercise selectivity over attention
  given to commercial stimuli they have a
  heightened awareness of stimuli that meet
  needs/interests and minimal awareness of
  irrelevant stimuli

EnvironmentalStimuli
SelectiveExposure
SelectiveAttention
Perception
17

• Selective Interpretation
• The interpretation of stimuli is also uniquely
  individual, because it is based on what people
  expect to see in light of previous experience,
  their motives and interests

18

• Adaptation Levels
• Indifference to a stimulus to which one has
  become accustomed
• Attention Stimulation
• Placement, timing, and presentation of stimuli so
  that target consumers are most likely exposed to
  them

19
Threshold Levels of Perception

• Sensation is the immediate and direct response of
  the sensory organs (e.g., eyes, ears, etc.) to a
  stimulus (e.g., an ad, a package, a brand name)
• Sensation is provoked by changes in sensory input
• The more stimuli that are present, the greater
  the change must be, and vice versa (e.g., pin
  dropping)

20

• For marketers purposes, there are two levels of
  sensory input (thresholds) of importance
• Absolute threshold
• Differential threshold (just noticeable
  difference)

21
1. The absolute threshold

• The lowest level at which an individual can
  experience a sensation
• I.e., the lowest level of stimuli at which a
  person can detect a difference between something
  and nothing

22

• Over time and exposure, the absolute threshold
  drops as consumers get used to a stimulus
  (sensory adaptation)
• Marketers need to increase/change sensory input
  in order to keep the attention of their target
  market

23
2. Differential Threshold (JND)

• The minimum change in sensation necessary for a
  person to detect it
• 19th century German scientist Ernst Weber
  discovered that the JND between two stimuli was
  not absolute, but varied according to the
  intensity of the first stimulus
• Webers Law thus states that the greater the
  initial stimulus, the greater the additional
  stimulus needs to be in order to be noticeable

24
Implications for marketers

• Manufacturers and marketers try to determine the
  JND for their products
• There are two primary reasons
• So that negative changes (e.g., reduction in
  product size or quality or increases in price)
  are not noticeable
• So that product improvements (improved packaging,
  larger quantities, lower price) are very apparent

25
Ethical issue

• Reductions in quantity and size may not be
  reflected in different packaging
• Marketers may attempt to differentiate product
  lines that are minimally different by increasing
  price differences between the lines
• Thus consumers perceive the lines as different
  when they are not

26
Perception and Image

• The view or portrait of a product, brand, store
  or company created in consumers minds
• Image is a major factor in consumers choice of
  one brand or store over another

27

• Images may be created around a number of
  categories
• Economy
• Safety
• Reliability
• Pleasure
• Status
• Distinctiveness

28
Subliminal Perception

• Research shows that people are stimulated below
  their level of conscious awarenessthey can
  perceive stimuli without being consciously aware
  they are doing so
• Federal Communications Commission was concerned
  enough to ban it from television and radio
• http//www.snopes2.com/business/hidden/popcorn.htm

29

• In the 70s interest was renewed due to claims
  advertisers were using subliminal embeds in print
  ads
• The most common claims involved the use of
  suggestive symbols in ice cubes floating in a
  pictured drink
• Research indicates sexually oriented embeds do
  not influence consumer preferences
• Because there is no evidence it works, there are
  no laws or regulations prohibiting it

30
Link to Subliminal Advertising Websites

• http//www.subliminalworld.com/