Consumer Behaviour Chapter 3 Yassin Younes

Chapter 3
Internal Influences on Consumer Behavior
Perception
n Understanding consumer REALITY means understanding his/her
PERCEPTION.
What is perception?
n Perception is the process by which people sensations are selected, organized, and
interpreted in the customers’ mind.
n Perception is related to product positioning how customers understands it. For example,
ads, specific songs-----.
n Sensory preferences are the sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and feelings that people like or
prefer over others.
n Perceptions are learned as part of the enculturation process.
What is Phenomenal absolutism???
n People see what they expect to see, they do not recognize that perceptions are created
through indirect assumption and assume others perceive situations in the same way. This
bias is called phenomenal absolutism.
What is Sensation?
n Sensation is the immediate response of our sensory receptors (eyes, ears, nose, mouth,
and fingers) to basic stimuli (light, color, sound, odor, and texture).
Sensation and Sensory Thresholds
n People detect stimuli through a variety of sensory receptors-the organs of perception.
Figure 2.1 Perceptual Process

Sensory Systems
n Our world is a symphony of colors, sounds, odors, tastes.
n Advertisements, product packages, radio and TV commercials, billboards provide
sensations
Hedonic Consumption
n Hedonic consumption: multi-sensory, fantasy, and emotional aspects of consumers’
interactions with products.
n Feeling of pleasure, comfort, experience rather than the function of product such as
watches/Guess; Panadol/Rivo.
Sensory Thresholds
Level of awareness
n It is the science that focuses on how the physical environment is integrated into our
personal, subjective world.
n Example: products related to middle class or teenage.
A. Absolute Threshold
n The lowest level and the minimum amount of stimulation (input) that can be detected on a
given sensory channel in the human body.
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B. Differential Threshold
n Just Noticeable Difference (J.N.D)- The minimum difference that can be
detected between two stimuli.
n Weber’s law -the stronger the initial sensory stimulus, the greater the
additional intensity needed for the second stimulus to be perceived as
different.
What is a vision?
Marketers rely heavily on visual elements in advertising,store design, packaging as they
communicate meanings based on product’s color, size, and style.
Color
n Color in marketing is serious business as
1.It Provokes emotion.
2.Reactions to color are biological and cultural
n Trade dress: colors associated with specific companies.
– Vodafone: red color
– DHL: yellow color
n Water = Blue/ transparent/ healthy/ slim.
n Hunger = Pizza Hut/ MacDonald's.
n Milk = white / blue (skimmed), Green (half cream) and Red (full cream) or light yoghurt
“Pink”.
Size
v We tend to eat more:
§ When food container is larger
§ When our plate still contains food
§ When we see assortment of foods
v We focus on height rather than width when pouring liquid into a glass
Vertical-Horizontal Illusion
n Fragrance is processed by the limbic system, the most primitive part of the brain where
immediate mood, memory and experienced are placed.
n Cadillac’s “Nuance” scent = expensive as you pay the extra money for leather.
Hearing
n Sound affects people’s feelings and behaviors.
n Phonemes: individual sounds that might be more or less preferred by consumers.
n Phonemes = unique product meanings
n Muzak uses sound and music to create mood
n High tempo = more stimulation
n Slower tempo = more relaxing
Speed and voice tone in ads such as celebrities such as opening a can in 7 Up
(fido dido), Nescafe, Dettol and the cotton does not lie.
e.g. consumers are more likely to recognize brand names that begin with hard consonant like a K
(Kellogg’s) or P (Pepsi)
Touch
n Haptic senses—or “touch”—is the most basic of senses; we learn this before vision and
smell
n Haptic senses affect product experience and judgment
Kinsei engineering is a Japanese philosophy that translates customers’ feelings into design
elements.
Marketers that use touch: perfume companies, car makers.
Examples
n When walking through stores, I can not help touching all kinds of products.
n Touching products can be fun.
Consumer Behaviour Chapter 3 Yassin Younes
n I feel more comfortable purchasing a product after physically examining it.

Taste
n Rely on customer experience when tasting cookies not like smelling it.
n Cultural changes determine desirable tastes
n The more respect we have for ethnic dishes, the more spicy food we desire

The Perceptual process

Stage 1: EXPOSURE
Ø A first step of perception, you are exposing someone to the product, creating awareness.
Ø It is a preconscious monitoring of all sensory channels for events that will require a shift in
attention.
Ø We can concentrate, ignore, or completely miss stimuli
Ø Cadillac goes from zero to 60 mph in 5 seconds—as shown in a 5-second commercial
Exposure Stimulus Determinants
n We are more likely to notice stimuli that differ from others around them
n So, marketers can create “contrast” through:
n Perceptual selection: people attend to only a small portion of the stimuli to which
they are exposed.
n Subliminal perception: refers to a stimulus below the level of the consumer’s
awareness.
n Perceptual vigilance means that consumers are more likely to be aware of stimuli that relate
to their current needs.
n i.e., not noticing the ads except when you need this product.
n Example: you’re in the market for a car—so you tend to notice car ads more than
before
n Perceptual defense means that people see what they want to see and don’t see what they
don’t want to see.
n Ex: a heavy smoker may block out images of cancer-scarred lungs.

Stage 2: Attention
n Refers to the extent to which processing activity is devoted to a particular stimulus.
n Adaptation: which is the degree to which consumers continue to notice a stimulus over
time. The process of adaptation occurs when we no longer pay attention to a stimulus
because it is so familiar.
n Factors Leading to Adaptation:
o Intensity: Less intense stimuli have less sensory impact such as soft sounds or Dim
colors.
o Exposure: Frequently encountered stimuli habituate as the rate of exposure
increases.
o Relevance: Stimuli that are irrelevant or unimportant habituate because they fail to
attract attention.
o Discrimination: Simple stimuli habituate because they do not require attention to
detail.
n We are more likely to notice stimuli that differ from others around them. A message can
create contrast in several ways including size, color, position, and novelty.
Perceptual Organization
Interpretation and Elaboration
n How consumers classify perceptions into categories and derive meaning from prior
knowledge, experience, referrals, recommendations, W-O-M they receive at a given
moment and organize them.
n Novelty means that the stimuli appear in an unexpected way or place to grab our attention.
Consumer Behaviour Chapter 3 Yassin Younes
n Marketers need to understand the role stimuli characteristics play on attention and
perception so they can create consistent, successful, efficient and effective messages that
have a chance to cut through clutter. i.e. what gets noticed and what gets ignored.

Stage 3: Interpretation
n Two people can see or hear the same event, but their interpretation of it can be as different
as night and day depending on expectation or set of beliefs the stimulus to be.
Attention
n Attention is the extent to which processing activity is devoted to a particular stimulus or
specific marketing message.
n Consumers are often in a state of sensory overload (exposed to far more information than
they can or are willing to process).
Perceptual Stimulus Organization
n Gestalt: German word means whole, pattern, or configuration, and we summarize this term
as the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. (Synergy).
n Consumers classify perceptions into categories
n Consumers apply prior knowledge about categories to organize them
n Categories are shaped by goals, values, or needs and wants to respond
n Categories are socially and culturally constructed and learned
n Categorization involves comparison between a perceived target and categorical knowledge.
A. Closure: People perceive an incomplete picture as complete.
B. Similarity: consumers group together objects that share similar physical
characteristics.
C. Figure-ground: one part of the stimulus will dominate (the figure) while the other
parts recede into the background (ground).
The eye of the beholder:
Interpretational Biases
n We often interpret ambiguous stimuli based on our experiences, expectations, and needs.

Semiotics: the symbols around us

n Correspondence between signs and symbols and their role in the assignment of meaning.
n Consumers use products to express their social identities. Products have meanings and we
rely on marketers to help us figure out what those meanings are.
n Marketing messages have three basic
components:
1. Object: product that is the focus of the
message
2. Sign: sensory image that represents the
intended meanings of the object
3. Interpretant: meaning derived

n This figure illustrates the meaning of the

three semiotic parts of a marketing
message. For Marlboro cigarettes, the
cigarettes are the product. The symbol is the cowboy which can be interpreted to mean
rugged American.
n Icon: a sign that resembles the product in some way.
n Index: a sign that is connected to a product because they share some property.
n Symbol: a sign that is related to a product through either conventional or agreed-upon
associations.
n Hyper-reality: the process of making real what is initially simulation or “hype”.
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Perceptual Positioning
n Brand perceptions = functional attributes + symbolic attributes.
n Perceptual map: map of where brands are perceived in consumers’ minds
Determine future positioning
Perceptual Map
n One technique is to ask them what attributes are important to them and how they feel
competitors rate on these attributes. This information is then used to construct a perceptual
map.