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Chapter 2

Perception

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR, 9eMichael R. Solomon

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Learning Objectives

When you finish this chapter, you should understand why:

• Perception is a three-stage process that translates raw stimuli into meaning.

• Products and commercial messages often appeal to our senses, but we won’t be influenced by most of them.

• The design of a product today is a key driver of its success or failure.

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Learning Objectives (continued)

• Subliminal advertising is a controversial—but largely ineffective—way to talk to consumers.

• We interpret the stimuli to which we do pay attention according to learned patterns and expectations.

• Marketers use symbols to create meaning.

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Sensation and Perception

• Sensation is the immediate response of our sensory receptors (eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and fingers) to basic stimuli (light, color, sound, odor, and texture).

• Perception is the process by which sensations are selected, organized, and interpreted.

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Figure 2.1 Perceptual Process

We receive external stimuli through our five senses

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Hedonic Consumption

• Hedonic consumption: multisensory, fantasy, and emotional aspects of consumers’ interactions with products

• Marketers use impact of sensations on consumers’ product experiences

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Sensory Systems

• Our world is a symphony of colors, sounds, odors, tastes

• Advertisements, product packages, radio and TV commercials, billboards provide sensations

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Vision

• Color provokes emotion

• Reactions to color are biological and cultural

• Color in the United States is becoming brighter and more complex

• Trade dress: colors associated with specific companies

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Vertical-Horizontal Illusion

• Which line is longer: horizontal or vertical?

• Answer: both lines are same length

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Scents

Odors create mood and promote memories:

• Coffee = childhood, home

• Cinnamon buns = sex

Marketers use scents:

• Inside products

• In promotions (e.g., scratch ‘n sniff)

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Sound

Sound affects people’s feelings and behaviors

• Phonemes: individual sounds that might be more or less preferred by consumers

• Example: “i” brands are “lighter” than “a” brands

• Muzak uses sound and music to create mood

• High tempo = more stimulation

• Slower tempo = more relaxing

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Touch

• Haptic senses—or “touch”—is the most basic of senses; we learn this before vision and smell

• Haptic senses affect product experience and judgment

• Kinsei engineering is a Japanese philosophy that translates customers’ feelings into design elements

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Table 2.1 Tactile-Quality Associations

Male Female

High class

Low class

Perception

Wool Silk

Denim Cotton

Fine

Coarse

Heavy Light

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Taste

• Flavor houses develop new concoctions for consumer palates

• Cultural changes determine desirable tastes

• The more respect we have for ethnic dishes, the more spicy food we desire

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Exposure

• Exposure occurs when a stimulus comes within range of someone’s sensory receptors

• We can concentrate, ignore, or completely miss stimuli

• Cadillac’s 5 second ad

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Sensory Thresholds

• Psychophysics: science that focuses on how the physical environment is integrated into our personal, subjective world

• Absolute threshold: the minimum amount of stimulation that can be detected on a given sensory channel

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Differential Threshold

• The ability of a sensory system to detect changes or differences between two stimuli• Minimum difference between

two stimuli is the j.n.d. (just noticeable difference)

• Example: packaging updates must be subtle enough over time to keep current customers

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Subliminal Perception

• Subliminal perception occurs when stimulus is below the level of the consumer’s awareness.

• Rumors of subliminal advertising are rampant—though there’s little proof that it occurs.

• Most researchers believe that subliminal techniques are not of much use in marketing.

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Subliminal Techniques

• Embeds: figures that are inserted into magazine advertising by using high-speed photography or airbrushing.

• Subliminal auditory perception: sounds, music, or voice text inserted into advertising.

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Attention

• Attention is the extent to which processing activity is devoted to a particular stimulus

• Consumers are often in a state of sensory overload

• Marketers need to break through the clutter

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Personal Selection Factors

Perceptual vigilance

Perceptual defense

Adaptation

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Factors Leading to Adaptation

Intensity Duration

Discrimination Exposure

Relevance

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Stimulus Selection Factors

• We are more likely to notice stimuli that differ from others around them

• So, marketers can create “contrast” through:

Size Color Position Novelty

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Creating Contrast with Size

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Interpretation

• Interpretation refers to the meaning we assign to sensory stimuli, which is based on a schema

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Stimulus Organization

• Gestalt: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts

• Closure: people perceive an incomplete picture as complete

• Similarity: consumers group together objects that share similar physical characteristics

• Figure-ground: one part of the stimulus will dominate (the figure) while the other parts recede into the background (ground)

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Application of the Figure-Ground Principle

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Semiotics

• Semiotics: correspondence between signs and symbols and their role in the assignment of meaning

• Marketing messages have three basic components:• Object: product that is the focus of the

message• Sign: sensory image that represents the

intended meanings of the object• Interpretant: meaning derived

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Figure 2.3 Semiotic Relationships

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Perceptual Positioning

• Brand perceptions = functional attributes + symbolic attributes

• Perceptual map: map of where brands are perceived in consumers’ minds

• Used to determine how brands are currently perceived to determine future positioning

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Positioning Strategy

• Examples of brand positioning

Lifestyle Grey Poupon is “high class”Price leadership Southwest Airlines is “no frills”Attributes Bounty is “quicker picker upper”Product class Mazda Miata is sporty convertibleCompetitors Northwestern Insurance is the “quiet

companyOccasions Wrigley’s gum used when smoking

not permittedUsers Levi’s Dockers targeted to men in 20s

and 30sQuality At Ford, “Quality is Job 1”

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Chapter Summary

• Perception is a three-stage process that translates raw stimuli into meaning.

• Products and messages may appeal to our senses.

• The design of a product affects our perception of it.

• Subliminal advertising is controversial.

• We interpret stimuli using learned patterns.

• Marketers use symbols to create meaning.