Chapter 2

Perception

CONSUMER
BEHAVIOR,

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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
Marketers use scents:
• Inside products
• In promotions

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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

Perception Male Female

Fine
High class Wool Silk

Low class Denim Cotton

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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 • https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=doVIXUFGsFA

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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 convertible
Competitors Northwestern Insurance is the “quiet
company
Occasions Wrigley’s gum used when smoking
not permitted
Users Levi’s Dockers targeted to men in 20s
and 30s
Quality 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.
04/06/20
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