5

Perception

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR Buying, Having, and Being

ELEVENTH EDITION

Michael R. Solomon

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education 5-1

 Learning Objectives
1. The design of a product today is a key driver of its
success or failure.
2. Products and commercial messages often appeal to our
senses, but we won’t be influenced by most of them.
3. Perception is a three-stage process that translates raw
stimuli into meaning.

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 Learning Objectives (Cont.)
4. Subliminal advertising is a controversial—but largely
ineffective—way to talk to consumers.
5. We interpret the stimuli to which we do pay attention
according to learned patterns and expectations.

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 Learning Objective 1
• The design of a product is now a key driver of its success
or failure.

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 Hedonic Consumption and the Design Economy
• Hedonic consumption includes how consumers interact
with the emotional aspects of products.
• Consumers may want hedonic value. A company
focuses on products with great design as well as
functionality.

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 Hedonic Consumption and the Design Economy
• The Coca-Cola bottle also illustrates an example of how
design can facilitate product success.

The classic, contoured Coca-Cola bottle also

attests to the power of touch. The bottle was
designed approximately 90 years ago
to satisfy the request of a U.S. bottler for a soft-
drink container that people could identify even in
the dark.
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Apple design thinking

Apple – Designed by
Apple in California

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 Learning Objective 2
• Products and commercial messages often appeal to our senses,
but because of the profusion (excess) of these messages, most
won’t influence us.

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 Sensory Systems

• Vision
• Scent
• Sound
• Touch
• Taste

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 Sensory Systems
• Our senses play quite a role in the decisions marketers
make.
• For instance, marketers rely heavily on visual elements
in advertising, store design, and packaging. They
communicate meanings on the visual channel through a
product’s color, size, and styling.
• An interest in scent has spawned new products. Some
brands utilize scent easily.
• For instance, Starbucks requires baristas to grind a batch
of coffee each time they brew a post instead of just once
each morning to ensure customers have that intense
smell during their Starbucks’ experience.

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 Sensory Systems

• Stores and restaurants often play certain kinds of music to create

a certain mood.
• Recent research found that participants who simply touch an item
for 30 seconds or less had a greater level of attachment with the
product. This connection in turn boosted what they were willing to
pay for it.
• A food item’s image and the values we attach to it influence how
we experience the actual taste. These aspects can be called a
brand’s sensory system.

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 Vision
• Marketers communicate meaning on a visual channel
using a product’s color, size, and styling.

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 Vision

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 Vision and color psychology

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 Vision and color psychology

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 Colour influence
• Colours may even influence our emotions more directly. Evidence
suggests that some colours (particularly red) create feelings of
arousal and stimulate appetite, and others (such as blue) create
more relaxing feelings

American Express launched its Blue card after its

research found that people describe the color as
"providing a sense of limitlessness and peace."

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 Colour and demographics
• In Western countries, black is the colour of mourning, whereas in some Eastern countries,
notably Japan, white plays this role.
• Women are drawn toward brighter tones and they are more sensitive to subtle (tender) shadings
and patterns. Some scientists attribute this to biology; females see colour better than males do,
and men are 16 times more likely to be colour-blind.
• Age also influences our responsiveness to colour. As we get older, our eyes mature and our
vision takes on a yellow cast. Colors look duller to older people, so they prefer white and other
bright tones. This helps to explain why mature consumers are much more likely to choose a
white car;

Lexus, which sells heavily in Adults (35-50years) market, makes 60 percent of its vehicles in white

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 Colour and packaging
• color choices are a serious business. These decisions help
to “color“ our expectations of what's inside the package
• A Danish company introduced its white cheese in a red
package under the name of Castello Bianco. They
chose this color to provide maximum visibility on store
shelves.
• sales were disappointing. A subsequent analysis of
consumer interpretations showed that the red
packaging and the name gave the consumers wrong
associations with the product type and its degree of
sweetness.
• The company relaunched it in a white package and
named it "White Castello." Almost immediately, sales
more than doubled.
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 Scent
• Like color, odor can also stir emotions and memory.
• Scent Marketing is a form of sensory marketing that we
may see in detergents, and many other products.
• Marketers are seeking ways to exploit the power of scent.
• You may notice products with scent such as aircraft cabins. A consistent scent
could ultimately register with consumers as a brand’s sensory signature.

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 Scent and …….
• The country of Lithuania created a perfume (appropriately called
"Lithuania") that it will use in embassies, hotels, and other public buildings to
convey the country's image.
• Star Bucks shop smells….
• Cinnabon shop smells…….
• Buying new car at dealer……..

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 Sound
• There are many aspects of sound relevant to marketers.
• Brands can use audio watermarking to encourage the
retention of the message and sound symbolism as a
way to influence brand image with sound.
• Nokia tune – Windows opening – Samsung song
• Sounds can even influence how we feel about size!
Vowel and consonant sounds (or phenomes) can even
be associated with perceptions of large and small size.
Audio Water Sonic Branding –
marking examples Coca Cola

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 Sound

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 Touch
Touch matters.
Research has shown that when consumers
touch a product, they then have a higher
level of attachment to the product.

Apple staff encourage customers to

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handle products in the store!
5-24
 Touch
• Touch can even influence sales interactions.
• Consumer researchers are studying the role that haptic sense
(touch) plays in consumer behavior. Basically, we are more sure
about what we perceive if we can touch it. We have a tendency to
want to touch objects.

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 Taste
‫كوكاكوال اجري ورا الطعم الحلو‬
Our taste receptors obviously contribute
to our experience of many products.
The Iconic Pepsi Ad That Made Coke Go Ballistic
Coca-Colas PR disaster 30 years later - CBS News

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 Learning Objective 3
• Perception is a three-stage process that translates raw
stimuli into meaning.

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 Sensation VS. Perception

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 Sensation
• This chapter focuses on the process by which we absorb
sensations and then use these to interpret the
surrounding world.
• Sensation :Immediate response of our sensory
receptors like eyes, ears, nose, mouth, skin to basic
stimuli like light, sound, odor, taste, texture.

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 Perception
• The process by which people, select,
organize, and interpret their
sensation.
• The study of perception, then, focuses
on what we add to these raw
sensations in order to give them
meaning.
• Sensation and hedonic consumption

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 Sensation
• Marketers messages are
MORE effective when they
appeal to several senses.
• New era of sensory
marketing where
sensations impact our
product experience to
create competitive
advantage.

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 Figure 5.1 Perceptual Process
We receive external stimuli through
our five senses

The three stages of perception are

exposure, attention, and
interpretation

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 Step 1: Exposure
• Exposure occurs when a stimulus comes within the range of
someone’s sensory receptors. What a person is capable of
receiving is stimuli within a person’s sensory threshold. That
threshold is the area within which stimuli can make a conscious
impact on the person’s awareness.
• The science of Augmented_reality_vs._vir
tual_reality_-
_AR_and_VR_made_clear
psychophysics focuses on
how people integrate the
physical environment into Perceptual thresholds
their personal worlds. become even more
interesting as we enter the
new age of
augmented reality (AR)
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 El-Alaraby AR

Shopping for appliances but can’t decide if they’ll match your home? The new version of ELARABY AR uses
augmented reality technology to help you see how the appliance will look in your home, so you can decide
which appliance will fit best. Just download the app, and try it in an empty space in your home! How does it
work?

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 Step 1: Exposure - Sensory Thresholds

• The absolute threshold refers to the minimum amount of stimulation a

person can detect on a given sensory channel.
• The absolute threshold means that the stimulation used by marketers
must be sufficient to register.

For instance, a highway billboard - the

print is too big for passing motorists to
see it.

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 Step 1: Exposure - Sensory Thresholds
• The differential threshold refers to the ability of a sensory system
to detect changes in or differences between two stimuli.
• The minimum difference we can detect between two stimuli is the j.n.d.
(just noticeable difference).

Sometimes a marketer may want to ensure

that consumers notice a change, as when a
retailer offers merchandise at a discount
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 Step 1: Exposure - Sensory Thresholds
• A consumer’s ability to detect a
difference between two stimuli is
relative.
• A psychophysicist named Ernst Weber
found that the amount of change
required for the perceiver to notice a
change systematically relates to the
intensity of the original stimulus.
• The stronger the initial stimulus, the
greater a change must be for us to
notice it. This relationship is known as
Weber’s Law.
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 Ernst Weber
Absolute Threshold,
Difference Threshold And
Weber's Law

BizBasics Weber-Fechner
Law of Pricing with Ron
Wilcox

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 Step 1: Exposure

• Sensory threshold

a) Absolute threshold

b) Differential threshold (JND)

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 The Pepsi/Coca-Cola/Google/Apple Logo Evolution and JND

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 Step 2: Attention
• Attention is the extent to which processing activity is devoted to a particular
stimulus
• Consumers experience sensory overload - Sensory overload means
consumers are exposed to far more information than they can process. Much
of this comes from commercial sources. We are exposed to thousands of
advertising messages each day in addition to the other types of stimuli we
sense.

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 Step 2: Attention

• The average adult is exposed to 3500 pieces of ads

everyday,30 years ago it was 560 only.
• The fight is getting tougher each day to get our
attention.

• So Marketers need to break through the clutter

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 How Do Marketers Get Attention?
• Personal Selection • Stimulus Selection
(receiver’s mindset)
1. Experience • Contrast
2. Perceptual filters 1. Size
• Perceptual vigilance 2. Color
• Perceptual defense 3. Position
3. Adaptation 4. Novelty

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 Personal Selection & Stimulus Selection Factors

Personal Stimulus
Selection Selection

Experience

Perceptual
Filters

Adaptation

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 How Do Marketers Get Attention? - Personal Selection
Factors
• Experience is the result of acquiring and processing stimulation over time. It
helps to determine how much exposure to a particular stimulus a person
accepts. Perceptual filters based on our past experiences influence what we
decide to process.
• Because the brain's capacity to process information is limited, consumers are
very selective about what they pay attention to. The process of perceptual
selection means that people attend to only a small portion of the stimuli to
which they are exposed.
• Consumers picking and choosing among stimuli to avoid being overwhelmed.
How do they choose?
• Both personal and stimulus factors help to decide

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 How Do Marketers Get Attention? - Personal Selection
Factors
Vigilance

Perceptual
filters Defense

Adaptation

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 How Do Marketers Get Attention? - Personal Selection
Factors
• Perceptual filters: based on our past
experiences influence what we decide to
process.
• Perceptual filters include vigilance,
defense, and adaptation.
• Perceptual Vigilance (awaken) means
consumers are more likely to be aware of
stimuli that relate to their current needs.
• EX: A consumer who rarely notices car
ads will become very much aware of
them when she or he is in the market for
a new car.

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 How Do Marketers Get Attention? - Personal Selection
Factors
• The flip side of perceptual vigilance is perceptual defense . This means that
people see what they want to see—and don’t see what they don’t want to
see.
• If a stimulus is threatening to us in some way, we may not process it, or
we may distort its meaning so that it’s more acceptable.

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 How Do Marketers Get Attention? - Personal Selection
Factors
• The flip side of perceptual vigilance is perceptual defense .

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 How Do Marketers Get Attention?
• Perceptual Adaptation can also affect attention the degree to which
consumers continue to notice a stimulus over time. The process of
adaptation occurs when consumers no longer pay attention to a stimulus
because it is so familiar
• A consumer can "habituate" and require increasingly stronger "doses" of a
stimulus to notice it.
• In addition to the receiver’s mindset, characteristics of the stimulus itself
play an important role in determining what we notice and what we ignore.
• Marketers need to understand these factors so they can create messages
and packages that will have a better chance of cutting through the clutter.
Several characteristics can aid in enhancing the chances of a stimulus for
being noticed including size, color, position, and novelty.
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 Factors Leading to Adaptation

Intensity Duration

Dull length

Discrimination Exposure
No details frequency

Relevance
If irrelevant
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 Factors Leading to Adaptation
Intensity - Dull Less-intense stimuli (e.g., soft sounds or dim colors)
habituate because they have less sensory impact.

Discrimination Simple stimuli habituate because they do not require

No details attention to detail.

Relevance Stimuli that are irrelevant or unimportant habituate because

If irrelevant they fail to attract attention.

Duration - length Stimuli that require relatively lengthy exposure to be processed

habituate because they require a long attention span.

Exposure - Frequently encountered stimuli habituate as the rate of

frequency exposure increases
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 Creativity to avoid Adaptation

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 Creativity to avoid Adaptation (Social Marketing)

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 Stimulus Selection Factors
• In addition to the receiver's mindset, characteristics of
the stimulus itself play an important role in determining
what we notice and what we ignore.
• Marketers need to understand these factors so they can
create messages and packages that will have a better
chance of cutting through the clutter

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 Stimulus Selection Factors
• In general, we are more likely to notice stimuli that differ
from others around them(remember Weber's Law).
• A message creates contrast in several ways

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 Size

Position

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 Golden Triangle
• GOLDEN TRIANGLE Position is key in
online advertising.
• Sophisticated eye-tracking studies clearly
show that most search engine users find
view only a very limited number of search
results.
• When the typical shopper looks at a search
page, her eye travels across the top of the
search result, returns to the left of the
screen, and then travels down to the last
item shown on the screen without scrolling.
• Search engine marketers call this space on the screen where listings are
virtually guaranteed to be viewed the golden triangle
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 Learning Objective 6
• We interpret the stimuli to which we do pay attention
according to learned patterns and expectations.

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 Step 3: Interpretation
• Interpretation refers to the meaning we assign to sensory stimuli.
• The meaning we assign to a stimulus depends on the schema, or set of
beliefs, to which we assign it.
• In a process we call priming, certain properties of a stimulus evoke a
schema. This in turn leads us to compare the stimulus to other similar ones
we encountered in the past.
• Identifying and evoking the correct schema is crucial to many marketing
decisions, because this determines what criteria consumers will use to
evaluate the product, package, or message.

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 Stimulus Organization
• One factor that determines how we will interpret a stimulus is the
relationship we assume it has with other events, sensations, or images in
memory.
• Our brains tend to relate incoming sensations to others already in memory
based on some fundamental organizational principles.
• These principles derive from Gestalt psychology, a school of thought that
maintains that people interpret meaning from the totality of a set of stimuli
rather than from an individual stimulus.

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 Stimulus Organization
• The German word Gestalt roughly means whole, pattern, or configuration,
and we summarize this term as the whole is greater than the sum of its
parts.
• The Gestalt perspective provides several principles that relate to the way our
brains organize stimuli including the closure principle, the principle of
similarity, and the figure-ground principle.
• Gestalt: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts
• Closure
• Similarity
• Figure-ground

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 Closure principle
• Closure: people perceive an incomplete picture as complete
if part of a shape’s border is missing people still tend to see the
shape as completely enclosed by the border and ignore the gaps.
This reaction stems from our mind’s natural tendency to recognize
patterns that are familiar to us and thus fill in any information that
may be missing.

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 We recognize
patterns of stimuli,
such as
familiar words. In this
Austrian ad
consumers
will tend to see the
word “kitchen” even
though the letters
are scrambled.

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

• An example of this is a large area of land used by numerous

independent farmers to grow crops. Each farmer may use a
unique planting style which distinguishes his field from another.

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

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 Figure-ground principle

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 Learning Objective 5
• Subliminal advertising (subconscious) is a controversial
but largely ineffective way to talk to consumers

Food_Network_Subliminal_
Advertising

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 Subliminal Perception
• Most marketers want to create messages above
consumers’ thresholds so people will notice them.
• Ironically, a good number of consumers instead believe
that marketers design many advertising messages so
they be perceived unconsciously, or below the threshold
of recognition.

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 Subliminal perception
• Subliminal perception refers to a stimulus below the
level of the consumer's awareness.
• Remember, if you can see it or hear it, it's not
subliminal; the stimulus is above the level of conscious
awareness

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 Subliminal Messaging Techniques
• Marketers supposedly send
subliminal messages on both
visual and aural channels.
• Embeds are tiny figures they
insert into magazine advertising
via high-speed photography.
• people don’t like feeling
manipulated

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 Subliminal Messaging Techniques
• study conducted in the 1950s had
used subliminal advertising in
movie theatres to drive sales of
sodas and popcorn at concession
stands.
• The study claimed that by splicing
single frames of visual messages
like “Buy zzzzzz” and “Buy
popcorn” into movie reels, sales
of those products had increased
by 57% and 18%, respectively.

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 Subliminal Messaging Techniques
• To circumvent this inconvenient restriction,
the marketing team at Marlboro came up with
a dastardly ingenious idea; they would use
subliminal visual messaging to convey the
Marlboro brand without using the
typographical logo of the company itself.
• Marlboro accomplished this by using a
barcode-style design that, at the high speeds
at which F1 cars travel around the track, was
almost as recognizable as the logo itself.
• While clever, Marlboro’s attempts to get
around the advertising ban were short-lived.
The European Public Health Commission
applied considerable pressure to European
lawmakers, who ruled that the design was
indeed too close to the banned Marlboro
design.
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 Subliminal advertising - KFC’s Dollar Snacker

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Subliminal advertising

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The Law of Perception
Marketing is not a battle of products, it’s a battle of perceptions.

The major difference between Toyota and Honda is that Toyotas emphasize practicality and reliability,
while Honda creates sportier and high-performance vehicles
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