Consumer Behavior: Chapter 3: Perception

CHAPTER OUTLINE

1. Introduction

   a. We live in a world overflowing with sensations.

     1) Marketers contribute to the overflow by supplying advertisements, product

       packages, radio and television commercials, and billboards.

     2) Each consumer copes with the bombardment of sensations by paying

       attention to some stimuli and tuning out others.

   b. Sensation refers to the immediate response of our sensory receptors (eyes, ears,

     nose, mouth, fingers) to such basic stimuli as light, color, sound, odors, and

     textures.

   c. Perception is the process by which these sensations are selected, organized, and

     interpreted. The study of perception, then, focuses on what we add to or take away from these raw sensations to give them meaning.

   d. People undergo stages of information processing in which stimuli are input and

     stored. Unlike computers, people only process a small amount of information

     (stimuli) available to them. An even smaller amount is attended to and given

     meaning.

   e. The perceptual process is made up of three stages:

     1) Exposure.

     2) Attention.

     3) Interpretation.

2. Sensory Systems

a.    External stimuli, or sensory inputs, can be received on a number of channels.

     1) The inputs picked up by our five senses constitute the raw data that begin the

       perceptual process.

     2) External stimuli can trigger memories from the past. The resulting responses

       are an important part of hedonic consumption (the multisensory, fantasy, and

       emotional aspects of consumers’ interactions with products).

   Hedonic Consumption and the Design Economy

   b. In recent years the sensory experiences we receive from products and services have become
     an even larger priority when we choose among competing options.       

     1) People prefer additional experiences to additional possessions as income rises.

     2) Target has turned to form over function for this reason.  Other marketers are also getting this.

     3) A new era of sensory marketing is born – companies are paying extra attention to the impact of sensations on consumers’ product experiences.

Vision

   c. The unique sensory quality of a product can play an important role in helping

     it to stand out from the competition, especially if the brand creates a unique

     association with the sensation.  Marketers communicate on the visual channel through a product’s color, size, and styling.

     1) Saturated colors such as green, yellow, cyan, and orange are considered

       the best hues to capture attention.

     2) Color is a key issue in package design.

     3) Decisions on color help to “color” our expectations of what’s inside the

       package.

     4) Some color combinations come to be so strongly associated with a corporation

       that they become known as the company’s trade dress, and the company may

       even be granted exclusive use of these colors (for example, Eastman Kodak’s

 defense of their use of yellow, black, and red in court).

       

   Smell

   d. Odors can stir emotions or create a calming feeling. They can invoke memories

     or relieve stress.

     1) Fragrance cues are processed by the limbic system, the most primitive part of the

       brain and the place where immediate emotions are experienced.

     2) Smell is a direct line to feelings of happiness, hunger, and even memories of

       happy times (such as childhood years).

     3) Ad companies spend about $80 million per year on scent marketing; the Scent Marketing Institute estimates that number will reach more than $500 million by 2016. Recent developments include scented clothes, scented stores, scented cars and planes, scented household products,

       and scented advertisements.

   Hearing

   e. Many aspects of sound affect people’s feelings and behaviors.

     1) The Muzak Corporation estimates that 80 million people hear their

       “background” music everyday.

     2) Research has shown that workers tend to slow down during mid-morning and

       mid-afternoon. Muzak uses upbeat tempo music during these times to stimulate

       activity. This is called “stimulus progression.”

   Touch

   f. Though much research needs to be done in this area, moods are stimulated or

    relaxed on the basis of sensations of the skin. Touch has been shown to be a

    factor in sales interactions.

     1) Touch or Haptic senses appear to moderate the relationship between product experience and  judgment confidence; i.e., people are more sure about what they perceive when they can
       touch it.  For instance, fragrance and cosmetics containers in particular tend to speak to consumers via their tactile appeal.
     2) The Japanese practice Kansei engineering, a philosophy that translates customers’    

       feelings into design elements.

     3) People associate the textures of fabrics and other surfaces with product

       qualities (e.g., smooth, rough, silky, etc.).

     4) Men often prefer roughness, whereas females prefer smoothness and softness.

 Taste

   g. Our taste receptors contribute to our experience of many products, and people form

    strong preferences for certain flavors.

     1) Specialized companies (called “flavor houses”) try to develop new concoctions

       to please the ever changing and demanding palates of consumers.

     2) Changes in our culture also determine the tastes we find desirable.

3. Exposure

   a. Exposure occurs when a stimulus comes within the range of someone’s sensory

     receptors.

   b. Consumers concentrate on some stimuli, are aware of others, and even go out of

     their way to ignore some messages.

   Sensory Thresholds

   c. The science that focuses on how the physical environment is integrated into our

     personal, subjective world is known as psychophysics.

     1) When we define the lowest intensity of a stimulus that can be registered on a

        sensory channel, we speak of a threshold for that receptor.

     2) The absolute threshold refers to the minimum amount of stimulation that can

        be detected on a sensory channel (the sound emitted by a dog whistle is 

        beyond our absolute threshold for example).

        

     3) The differential threshold refers to the ability of a sensory system to detect

       changes or differences between two stimuli. The minimum differences that

       can be detected between two stimuli is known as the j.n.d. or just noticeable

       difference (e.g., marketers might want to make sure that a consumer notices

       that merchandise has been discounted).

         a) A consumer’s ability to detect a difference between two stimuli is

           relative. A whispered conversation will not be noticed on a busy street.

         b) Weber’s Law demonstrates that the stronger the initial stimulus, the

           greater the change must be for it to be noticed.  Cereal boxes need to be vastly different sizes for consumers to notice.  Similarly, most retailers believe that a price discount must be at least 20 percent for consumers to notice or to react to it.

Subliminal Perception

   a. Most marketers are concerned with creating messages above consumers’

     thresholds so they can be sure to be noticed. Subliminal perception, however,

     is perception that is below the threshold level. It occurs when the stimulus is below the level of the consumer’s awareness.

      1) Though the topic has received its share of notoriety, there is virtually no proof

        that this process has any effect on consumer behavior.

      2) Most examples of this technique are not really subliminal, in fact, they are quite

        visible.

     3. Does subliminal perception work? Within the marketing context, most agree the

     answer is “probably not.” Effective messages must be very specifically tailored to

     individuals, rather than the mass messages required by advertising. Other

     discouraging factors are:

     a) Individuals have wide differences in their threshold levels.

     b) Advertisers can’t control many important variables (such as viewing distance

       from the television screen).

     c) Consumers must give their absolute attention to the screen—most do not.

     d) The specific effect can’t be controlled—your thirst will not make you buy

       “Pepsi.”

4. Attention

   a. Attention refers to the extent to which processing activity is devoted to a particular

     stimulus.

     1) Consumers are often in a state of sensory overload or are exposed to far more

       information than they are capable or willing to process.

     2) Today, the average adult is exposed to about 3,500 pieces of advertising

       information every single day.

     3) Banner ads dominate the viewing space in most Web pages. These online ads

       can in fact increase brand awareness after only one exposure, but only if they

       motivate Web surfers to click through and see what information is awaiting

       them.

     4) Many younger people have developed the ability to multitask, or process information
       from more than one medium at a time.

   b. Perceptual selection.

     1) Because the brain’s capacity to process information is limited, consumers are

       very selective about what they pay attention to.

     2) The process of perceptual selection means that people attend to only a

       small portion of stimuli to which they are exposed.

     3) Personal and stimulus factors help to decide which stimuli will be received and

       which will be avoided.

     4) One factor that determines how much exposure to a particular stimulus a person

       accepts is experience.

     5) Perceptual filters based on our past experiences influence what we decide to

       process:

        a) Perceptual vigilance—consumers are more likely to be aware of stimuli that

          relate to their current needs.

        b) Perceptual defense—people see what they want to see and vice versa.

        c) Adaptation—the degree to which consumers notice a stimulus over time.

           Several factors lead to adaptation:

           1. Intensity.

           2. Duration.

           3. Discrimination.

           4. Exposure.

           5. Relevance.

     6) In general, stimuli that differ from others around them are more likely to be

       noticed (remember Weber’s Law). This contrast can be created in several

       ways:

        a) Size.

        b) Color.

        c) Position.

        d) Novelty.

5. Interpretation

   a. Interpretation refers to the meaning that we assign to sensory stimuli. Two people

     can see the same event but their interpretation can be completely different.

     1) Consumers assign meaning to stimuli based on the schema, or set of beliefs,

        to which the stimulus is assigned. Priming is a process where certain

        properties of a stimulus typically will evoke a schema that leads us to

        evaluate the stimulus in terms of other stimuli we have encountered that are

        believed to be similar.

     2) Identifying and evoking the correct schema is crucial to many marketing

        decisions, because this determines what criteria will be used to evaluate the

        product, package, or message.

   Stimulus Organization

   b. One factor that determines how a stimulus will be interpreted is its assumed

     relationship with other events, sensations, or images.

     1) Our brains tend to relate incoming sensations to others already in memory

        based on some fundamental organizational principles.

         a) These principles are based on Gestalt psychology—meaning is derived

           from totality of a set of stimuli. In German, gestalt means whole, pattern,

           or configuration.

         b) Sometimes the “whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

     2) Principles include:

        a) The closure principle—people tend to perceive an incomplete picture as

          complete. We fill in the blanks.

        b) The principle of similarity—consumers tend to group objects that share

          similar physical characteristics.

        c) The figure-ground principle— one part of a stimulus will dominate

          (the figure) while other parts recede into the backdrop (the ground).

  

   The Eye of the Beholder: Interpretational Biases

   c. The stimuli we perceive often are ambiguous—it’s up to us to determine the

     meaning based on our experiences, expectations, and needs.

   Semiotics: The Symbols Around Us

   d. For assistance in understanding how consumers interpret the meanings of

     symbols, some marketers are turning to a field of study known as semiotics

     that examines the correspondence between signs and symbols and their role

     in the assignment of meaning. Semiotics is important to the understanding

     of consumer behavior because consumers use products to express their social

     identities.

     1) Marketing messages have three basic components:

        a) The object that is the focus of the message.

        b) The sign is the sensory imagery that represents the intended meanings of

          the object.

        c) The interpretant is the meaning derived.

     2) Signs are related to objects in one of three ways:

        a) An icon is a sign that resembles the product in some way.

        b) An index is a sign that is connected to a product because they share some property.

        c) A symbol is a sign that is related to a product through either conventional or

          agreed-upon associations.

     3) One of the hallmarks of modern advertising is that it creates a condition that

       has been termed hyperreality. This occurs when advertisers create new

       relationships between objects and interpretants by inventing new connections

       between products and benefits (e.g., equating Marlboro cigarettes with the

       American frontier spirit).

    

   Perceptual Positioning

   e. A product stimulus often is interpreted in light of what we already know about a

     product category and the characteristics of existing brands. Perceptions of a brand

     consist of:

     1) Functional attributes (e.g., its features, its price, and so on).

     2) Symbolic attributes (its image, and what we think it says about us when we

       use it).

   f. Our evaluation of a product typically is the result of what it means rather than what

    it does.

     1) This meaning is called market position.

     2) Positioning strategy is a fundamental part of a company’s marketing efforts

       as it uses elements of the marketing mix to influence the consumer’s

       interpretation of its meaning.

     3) There are many dimensions that can be used to establish a brand’s position:

        a) Lifestyle.

        b) Price leadership.

        c) Attributes.

        d) Product class.

        e) Competitors.

        f) Occasions.

        g) Users.

        h) Quality.