Perception

Chapter 3
You are here!
Lecture Objectives

When you finish this lecture you should be able to:

• Understand and apply theoretical approaches that explain

human sensation and perception.

• Describe the three-stage perception process that translates

raw stimuli into meaning.

• Explain the conscious and unconscious aspects of perception.

Conceptual Map of Chapter 3

Sensory Interpretati Consumer

Exposure Attention
Systems on Behaviour
The Importance of Perception in CB

To truly, and permanently, change a customer's

buying behaviour, you first need to change their
perception of your company, products & services.

A change in perception can lead to a

permanent change in behaviour.
 What do you think?

• Does wine taste better in a

wine glass than in a water
glass?
• Does martini taste better in a
martini glass than in a water
glass or a wine glass?

• Is an ad showing a piece of
cake more engaging when the
fork is placed to the right of
the cake than when the fork is
placed to the left or there is
no fork?
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What do you think?

• Are people sitting in hard chairs are less

willing to compromise in price negotiations
than people sat in soft, comfortable chairs?

Nhận thức được thể hiện

• Embodied cognition: The idea that without

our conscious awareness, our bodily
sensations (help) determine our perceptions
or decisions we make.

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Sensation and Perception

Sensation:
• The immediate response of our sensory
receptors (eyes, ears, nose, mouth,
fingers) to basic stimuli such as light,
colour, sound, odours and textures.

Perception:
• The process by which sensations are
selected, organised and interpreted.

The Study of Perception:

• Focuses on what we add to raw
sensations to give them meaning.

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Sensory Systems

External stimuli, or sensory inputs, can be received on a

number of different channels. Inputs picked up by our five senses
are the raw data that begin the perceptual process.

• The resulting responses are an important part of hedonic

consumption → The multi-sensory, fantasy and emotional aspects
of consumers’ interactions with products.

• Context Effects are subtle cues in the environment that influence a

person’s decisions

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Experiential Marketing

• Experiential Marketing seeks opportunities to connect with

consumers by engaging in a sensory way and drawing on
personal experiences.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SByymar3bds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRgWttqFKu8

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Sensory Marketing: Vision

• Marketers rely heavily on visual

elements in advertising (e.g. branded
Snapchat filters), store design and
packaging.
• Meanings are communicated on the
visual channel through a product’s
colour, size and styling.
• Colours may influence our emotions and
perceptions more directly:
• Excitement and passion (e.g. red)
• Credibility and calming (e.g. blue)

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Benefits of Color Therapy
Over the decades, color therapy has been purported to provide several benefits ranging from physical to
mental, including:
• Stress relief: Certain colors like blue and green are thought to have soothing effects on people who are
stressed or anxious.
• Boost your appetite: Warm and stimulating colors are thought to boost the appetite when you struggle
with having a desire for food.
• Seasonal affective disorder: Color therapy also suggests the unproven idea that warm colors like yellow
and orange could also help with this.
• To boost your energy: Colors such as red and yellow are believed to boost your energy and make you
more motivated.
Sensory Marketing: Vision (cont).
Some reactions to colour come from learned associations:
• e.g. black is associated with mourning in the United
States, whereas white is associated with mourning in
Japan.
Some reactions to colour are due to biological and cultural
differences:
• e.g. women tend to be drawn to brighter tones and are
more sensitive to subtle shadings and patterns.

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Interpretations of Colour

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Sensory Marketing: Vision (cont).

Research has shown:

• When women are exposed to an unbranded
Tiffany’s box, their heart rate went up 20%
(colour not logo)
• College students given a bowl of M&Ms that had
10 colours ate 26% more than those given a bowl
with 7 colours
• White eggs were popular among consumers for a
long time. Then gradually, white was out, brown
was in.
Perhaps, brown = organic/ more natural.
• Food products perceived as healthier in bright
packaging but tastier in dark packaging

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Sensory Marketing: Smell
Odours can stir emotions, create a calming feeling and
improve consumer memory.

• Some responses to scents result from early associations that

call up good or bad feelings.

• E.g., Smell of coffee → childhood memories of their

mothers cooking breakfast; aroma reminds them of
their mother/home.

• Starbucks certainly understands the olfactory benefit of scent – “an

atmosphere really special, the coffee smell, it has a certain something
that makes you feel comfortable, relaxed.”.

Marketers are finding ways to use smell:

• E.g. Scented clothes, stores, advertisements

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Sensory Marketing: Sound
Advertising jingles create brand awareness while background music creates desired
moods.

→ Sound affects people’s feelings and behaviours.

Sound symbolism:

• The way a word sounds can influence our assumptions about what it describes and
its attributes (e.g. Himmer vs Hummer).

• fast music decreases spending in a retail environment, but increases turnover in

restaurants.
• The Starbucks’ music selection is a key in order to create this atmosphere that invites
to relax while you are reading the newspaper, have a chat with your friends or even
work with your laptop → use slower music to create longer dining times, leading to a 29
percent increase in the average bill according to one experiment

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 Sensory Marketing: Touch

• People associate textures of fabrics and other surfaces with

product quality.

• Given retailer investment in driving consumers to buy

online, it makes sense to know whether low versus high
NFT (need for touch) consumers react differently when
they cannot touch a product.

• Encouraging shoppers to touch a product encourages them

to image they own it – where people value things more
highly if they own them.

• Accidental interpersonal touch by co-consumers can have

negative impact on willingness to purchase and time spend
in store (i.e. Butt-brush theory)

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Sensory Marketing: Taste
• Taste receptors contribute to our experience of
many products.

• Specialised companies called ‘flavour houses’ are

constantly developing new concoctions to please
the changing palates of consumers.

• Changes in culture also determine the tastes we

find desirable.

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The Stages of Perception

•Exposure occurs when a stimulus comes

within the range of someone’s sensory
receptors.
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 Activity– Perceptual process

1. Please complete the table

Exposure Attention Interpretation

Which senses were What aspects of the How did you interpret the
stimulated? How? product/service, experience (good? bad?)
environment were you Why?
aware of at the time?
Why?

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Attention

The extent to which processing activity

is devoted to a particular stimulus.

• Attention allocation will depend on

characteristics of the individual and the
stimulus.

Perceptual selection:

• People attend to only a small portion of the

stimuli to which they are exposed (e.g.,
selective attention)

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Selective Attention: Eye Tracking

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Selective Attention: Mostly looking for what??

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The Eye of the Beholder: Interpretational Biases

The stimuli we perceive often are ambiguous, so it’s up to us to determine the

meaning based on our experiences, expectations and needs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4

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Weber’s Law (example)

• Example 1: Holding an object weighting 1 kg in your hand + 1 kg vs. 20 Kg + 1 kg

• Example 2: $10 product offers $3 discount vs. $100 product offers $3 discount.

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JUST NOTICEABLE DIFFERENCE
Weber's Law found that the amount of change necessary to
be noticed is related to the intensity of the stimulus.
For example if you were carrying ten pounds and added one
pound you may notice the difference; but if you were carrying
100 lbs and added 1, you would not notice the difference.

https://youtu.be/LnZGJBnb0b0
Task

1. Create question relate the sensory perception to ask.

2. Evaluate the effective of these on consumer behavior
3. Offer recommendation to improve them.