Chapter 3:
PERCEPTION
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, students should understand why:
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 because of the
profusion of these messages, we don’t notice most of them.
3. Perception is a three-stage process that translates raw stimuli into meaning.
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.
6. The field of semiotics helps us to understand how marketers use symbols to create meaning.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
After reading this chapter, students should understand why:
The design of a product today is a key driver of its success or failure.
In recent years, the sensory experiences we receive from products and services have become a
high priority when we choose among competing options. Consumers increasingly want to buy
things that will give them hedonic value in addition to functional value. They often believe
that most brands perform similarly, so they weigh a product’s aesthetic qualities heavily when
they select a brand.
Products and commercial messages often appeal to our senses, but because of the profusion
of these messages, we don’t notice most of them.
Marketing stimuli have important sensory qualities. We rely on colors, odors, sounds, tastes,
and even the “feel” of products when we evaluate them. Not all sensations successfully make
their way through the perceptual process. Many stimuli compete for our attention, and we do
not notice or accurately interpret the majority of them. People have different thresholds of
perception. A stimulus must be presented at a certain level of intensity before our sensory
detectors can detect it. In addition, a consumer’s ability to detect whether two stimuli are
different (the differential threshold) is an important issue in many marketing contexts, such as
package design, the size of a product, or its price.
Perception is a three-stage process that translates raw stimuli into meaning.
Perception is the process by which physical sensations, such as sights, sounds, and smells, are
selected, organized, and interpreted. The eventual interpretation of a stimulus allows it to be
assigned meaning. A perceptual map is a widely used marketing tool that evaluates the
relative standing of competing brands along relevant dimensions.
Subliminal advertising is a controversial—but largely ineffective—way to talk to consumers.
So-called subliminal persuasion and related techniques that expose people to visual and aural
messages below the sensory threshold are controversial. Although evidence that subliminal
persuasion is effective is virtually nonexistent, many consumers continue to believe that
advertisers use this technique. Some of the factors that determine which stimuli (above the
threshold level) are perceived include the amount of exposure to the stimulus, how much
attention it generates, and how it is interpreted. In an increasingly crowded stimulus
environment, advertising clutter occurs when too many marketing-related messages compete
for attention.
We interpret the stimuli to which we do pay attention according to learned patterns and
expectations.
We do not attend to a stimulus in isolation. We classify and organize it according to principles
of perceptual organization. A Gestalt, or overall pattern, guides these principles. Specific
grouping principles include closure, similarity, and figure-ground relationships. The final step
in the process of perception is interpretation. Symbols help us make sense of the world by
providing us with an interpretation of a stimulus that others often share. The degree to which
the symbolism is consistent with our previous experience affects the meaning we assign to
related objects.
The field of semiotics helps us to understand how marketers use symbols to create meaning.
Marketers try to communicate with consumers by creating relationships between their
products or services and desired attributes. A semiotic analysis involves the correspondence
between stimuli and the meaning of signs. The intended meaning may be literal (e.g., an icon
such as a street sign with a picture of children playing). However, it may be indexical if it
relies on shared characteristics (e.g., the red in a stop sign means danger). Meaning also can be
conveyed by a symbol in which an image is given meaning by convention or by agreement of
members of a society (e.g., stop signs are octagonal, whereas yield signs are triangular).
Marketer-created associations often take on lives of their own as consumers begin to believe
that hype is, in fact, real. We call this condition hyperreality.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. Sensation
A. Sensation refers to the immediate response of our sensory receptors (eyes, ears,
nose, mouth, fingers) to such basic stimuli as light, color, sound, odors, and
textures.
B. Perception is the process by which these sensations are selected, organized, and
interpreted. The study of perception, then, focuses on what we add to these raw
sensations to give them meaning. External stimuli, or sensory inputs, can be
received by our brains on a number of channels.
The inputs picked up by our five senses constitute the raw data that begin
the perceptual process.
External stimuli can trigger memories from the past.
The unique sensory quality can help differentiate a product from the
competition.
The resulting responses are an important part of hedonic consumption (the
multi- sensory, fantasy, and emotional aspects of consumers’ interactions with
products). In the era of sensory marketing, companies pay extra attention to
the impact of sensations on product experiences. A sensory signature is the
sensory impression a brand leaves in people’s minds.
C. Vision
Marketers communicate on the visual channel through a product’s color, size, and
styling and rely on visual elements in advertising, store design, and packaging.
Colors can create feelings of arousal, stimulation, relaxation, and so on.
a. Red can create feelings of arousal and stimulate appetite, red backgrounds
perform better when consumers have to remember details, and women in red
are rated as more attractive by men than those who wear blue.
b. Blue can create more relaxing feelings, consumers do better at imaginative
tasks when they are presented on blue backgrounds, and products presented
against blue backdrops are liked better than products shown against red
backdrops.
c. Black is associated with power and mourning.
d. Some reactions are learned through but others are not. Women are drawn toward
brighter tones, perhaps because females see color better than males. Older
people prefer white and bright tones, perhaps because colors look duller to older
people. Hispanics prefer brighter colors, perhaps because of intense lighting
conditions in Latin America. Some cultures do not have words that correspond
to colors available in other cultures.
e. Color (and the choice of color palette) is a key issue in package design.
f. Some color combinations come to be so strongly associated with a
corporation that they become known as the company’s trade dress, and
the company may even be granted exclusive use of these colors.
*****Use Table 3-1 Marketing Application of Color
Here*****
D. Dollars and Scents
Odors can stir emotions or create a calming feeling. They can invoke memories or
relieve stress. Fragrance cues are processed by the limbic system, the most primitive
part of the brain and the place where immediate emotions are experienced. Recent
developments in the use of fragrance include scented clothes, scented stores, scented
cars and planes, scented household products, and scented advertisements.
E. Sound
Sound can affect people’s feelings and behaviors. Audio watermarking is a term
to describe when producers weave a sound/motif into a piece of music that acts
like an earworm we compulsively hum. Sound symbolism is the process by
which the way a word sounds influences our assumptions about what it describes
and attributes like its size. Consumers are more likely to recognize brand names
that begin with a hard consonant (K or P). Phonemes (vowel and consonant
sounds) are associated with perceptions of large and small size.
F. Touch
Touch has been shown to be a factor in sale interactions. People are stimulated or
relaxed by sensations that reach the skin. Some view touch like a primal language,
one we learn well before writing and speech. Touch or haptic senses appear to
moderate the relationship between product experience and judgment confidence; i.e.,
people are more sure about what they perceive when they can touch it. The Japanese
practice, Kansei engineering, is a philosophy that translates customers’ feelings into
design elements.
G. Taste
Taste is influenced by biological factors (taste receptors) and cultural factors (the
image and values associated with food influence how we experience taste).
Discussion Opportunity—Ask: What colors can you think of that are uniquely associated with
a particular company or a product? Give at least three illustrations. Have you noticed any
confusing similarities with these companies or products?
Discussion Opportunity—Ask students to consider their most favorite and least favorite scents.
Before class, consider your own as well. Then, engage the class in a discussion about whether
or not such scents affect product purchase or avoidance.
Discussion Opportunity—Have students close their eyes and picture themselves shopping at a
mall (you might give them cues to help this visualization along). As they are doing this, tell them
that they should consider that the store is completely silent. After a few seconds, have them
share how this affected their experience. Then ask: What are other ways marketers might use
sound to stimulate your purchasing?
Discussion Opportunity—Ask students the following: What is your favorite “new” taste? Give
an illustration. How did you discover this new taste? What stimulus influenced you the most to
try this “new” taste? How could marketers use this information?
II. . The Stages of Perception
As shown in Figure 5.1, the perceptual process is made up of three stages:
Exposure
Attention
Interpretation
A. Stage 1: Exposure
1. Exposure occurs when a stimulus comes within the range of someone’s sensory
receptors. The science that focuses on how the physical environment is integrated
into our personal, subjective world is known as psychophysics.
2. When we define the lowest intensity of a stimulus that can be registered on a
sensory channel, we speak of a threshold for that receptor.
3. The absolute threshold refers to the minimum amount of stimulation that
can be detected on a sensory channel (the sound emitted by a dog whistle is
beyond our auditory absolute threshold, for example).
4. The differential threshold refers to the ability of a sensory system to detect
changes or differences between two stimuli.
a. The minimum difference that can be detected between two stimuli is known as
the
j.n.d. or just noticeable difference (e.g., marketers might want to make sure
that a consumer notices that merchandise has been discounted).
b. A consumer’s ability to detect a difference between two stimuli is
relative. A whispered conversation will not be noticed on a busy street.
c. Weber’s Law demonstrates that the stronger the initial stimulus, the greater
the change must be for it to be noticed. Cereal boxes need to be vastly
different sizes for consumers to notice. Similarly, most retailers believe that a
price discount must be at least 20 percent for consumers to notice or to react
to it.
Use Consumer Behavior Challenge
#13-11
Discussion Opportunity—Ask students to consider how the absolute threshold is an
important consideration in designing marketing stimulation. Then have them give
illustrations.
***** Use Figure 3.1 Here-Perceptual Process *****
5. Subliminal Perception is perception that is below the threshold level. It occurs
when the stimulus is below the level of the consumer’s awareness.
a. Embeds are tiny figures inserted into magazine ads via high-speed
photography or airbrushing that are supposed to exert strong but
unconscious influences on readers.
b. Does subliminal perception work? Within the marketing context, most agree
the answer is “probably not.” Effective messages must be very specifically
tailored to individuals, rather than the mass messages required by advertising.
Other discouraging factors are:
Individuals have wide differences in their threshold levels.
Advertisers cannot control many important variables (such as
viewing distance from the television screen).
Viewers must give their absolute attention to the screen—most do not.
Even if the advertiser induces the desired effect, it works only at a
general level.
B. Stage 2: Attention
Attention refers to the extent to which processing activity is devoted to a particular
stimulus.
1. Consumers are often in a state of sensory overload or are exposed to far more
information than they are capable or willing to process. Today, the average
adult is exposed to about 3,500 pieces of advertising information every single
day.
2. As of 2010, more than half of teens report that they engage in
multitasking, or processing information from more than one medium at a
time.
3. How do Marketers Get Our Attention?
Discussion Opportunity—Ask the class to write down the price of the following goods on a
piece of paper: (a) a gallon of 2% milk, (b) a Big Mac, (c) a pair of top-of-the-line Nike tennis
shoes, and (d) a Chevrolet Corvette. Then see if they can figure out the differential threshold
they have for these goods. (See how much price would have to change before they would
actually know it.) Ask them why it is different depending on the price of the product in question.
Discussion Opportunity—Find an example of what you perceive to be a subliminal
message. Explain your rationale to the class and show the product or message.
Discussion Opportunity—Bring in a small can of Jolly Green Giant mushrooms. At one time,
the mushrooms on the front of the can seemed to spell “SEX.” See if students can find their own
examples of embeds. What do they think of this technique? Under what circumstances would
“subliminal stimulation” be of benefit to society?
***Use Consumer Behavior Challenge 3-14
Here***
a. Networks try to engage viewers with original content during commercial breaks.
b. Rich media advertisements online use movement to get viewer attention
(e.g. LowerMyBills.com silhouetted dancers).
c. Teaser ads start a story on television and ask you to go to the website for the
rest of the ad.
d. Doing something novel/unexpected.
e. Perceptual selection means that people attend to only small portion of
stimuli to which they are exposed. Personal and stimulus factors help to
decide which stimuli will be received and which will be avoided.
f. Personal Selection Factors reflect a consumer’s experience, the result
of acquiring and processing stimulation over time, which influences how
much exposure to a particular stimulus a person accepts.
g. Perceptual filters include perceptual vigilance (consumers are more likely
to be aware of stimuli that relate to their current needs) and perceptual
defense (consumers may not process or distort the meaning of a threatening
stimulus).
h. Adaptation, the degree to which consumers continue to notice a stimulus
over time, is another personal selection factor. The intensity (less intense),
duration (lengthy), discrimination (simple), exposure (frequent), and
relevance (irrelevant) of stimuli affect (increase) the likelihood of
adaptation.
i. Stimulus selection factors, or the characteristics of the stimulus itself, also
affect what we notice and what we ignore.
i. We are more likely to notice stimuli that differ from those around them
(e.g. messages that create contrast).
ii. Altering size, color, position, or novelty can create contrast.
C. Interpretation
Interpretation refers to the meaning that we assign to sensory stimuli. Two people
can see the same event but their interpretation can be completely different.
1. Consumers assign meaning to stimuli based on the schema, or set of beliefs, to which
the stimulus is assigned.
2. Priming is a process where certain properties of a stimulus typically will evoke a
Discussion Opportunity—Ask: What do you think are the characteristics of the best banner
ads? Give an illustration.
Discussion Opportunity—Ask students to think of examples when they have used perceptual
vigilance and perceptual defense. Think of examples and circumstances when advertisers
consciously are able to overcome these effects in consumers. Identify the techniques that
might be used to break through these barriers.
Discussion Opportunity—Bring four magazine ads, one that illustrates each of the four
contrast methods demonstrated in the chapter and discuss in class.
schema that leads us to evaluate the stimulus in terms of other stimuli we have
encountered that are believed to be similar.
3. Identifying and evoking the correct schema is crucial to many marketing decisions,
because this determines what criteria will be used to evaluate the product, package, or
message.
4. Package schematics may influence consumer feelings about the contents of a
package for better or worse.
5. Stimulus organization occurs as we relate incoming sensations to those
already in memory, based fundamental organizational principles.
6. These principles are based on Gestalt psychology—meaning is derived from totality
of a set of stimuli. In German, gestalt means whole, pattern, or configuration.
Principles include:
·The closure principle—people tend to perceive an incomplete
picture as complete. We fill in the blanks.
·The principle of similarity—consumers tend to group objects that share
similar physical characteristics.
·The figure-ground principle—one part of a stimulus will dominate (the
figure) while other parts recede into the backdrop (the ground).
7. Semiotics: The Symbols Around Us
A. Semiotics is the field that examines the correspondence between signs and
symbols and how we assign meanings. From a semiotic perspective, every
marketing message has three basic components:
The object that is the focus of the message (e.g. Marlboro cigarettes).
The sign is the sensory imagery that represents the intended meanings
of the object (e.g. the Marlboro cowboy).
The interpretant is the meaning derived (e.g. rugged, individualistic,
American).
B. Signs are related to objects in one of three ways:
An icon is a sign that resembles the product in some way (e.g. Ford Mustang).
An index is a sign that is connected to a product because they share
some property (pine tree on Spic & Span, shared property of fresh
Discussion Opportunity—Ask: What might be the schema for (a) a tuxedo, (b) a hair dryer, or
(c) a calculator to be used in school?
Discussion Opportunity—Ask: When you walk through a room when Wheel of Fortune is on, do
you find yourself stopping to solve the puzzle? When you hear “Less filling . . .” what do you
think of? Give illustrations that demonstrate how advertisers can use or must be aware of (a)
the closure principle, (b) the principle of similarity, and (c) the figure-ground principle.
scent).
A symbol is a sign that is related to a product through either conventional
or agreed-upon associations (Dreyfus Fund lion represents
fearlessness/strength).
8. Hyperreality occurs when advertisers create new relationships between objects and
interpretants by inventing new connections between products and benefits (e.g.,
equating Marlboro cigarettes with the American frontier spirit). Reverse product
placement (where fictional products that appear in shows become popular in the
real world) is an example of hyperreality.
9. Perceptual positioning is important because our evaluation of a product is the result
of what it means rather than what it does. Our perceptions of this meaning are the
basis for the product’s market position. Perceptions of a brand consist of functional
attributes (e.g., its features, its price, and so on) and symbolic attributes (its image,
and what we think it says about us). Positioning strategy is a fundamental part of a
company’s marketing efforts as it uses elements of the marketing mix to influence
the consumer’s interpretation of its meaning. There are many dimensions that can be
used to establish a brand’s position:
Lifestyle (e.g. Grey Poupon has a higher class condiment)
Price leadership (e.g. L’Oreal sells Plenitude in discount stores)
Attributes (e.g. Bounty paper towels are “the quicker picker upper)
Product class (e.g. Spyder Eclipse is a sporty convertible)
Competitors (e.g. Northwestern Insurance is “the quiet company”)
Occasions (e.g. Wrigley’s gum as an alternative to smoking)
Users (e.g. Levi’s Dockers target men 20s-40s)
Quality (e.g. Ford “Quality is job 1)
End-of-Chapter Support Material
SUMMARY OF SPECIAL FEATURE BOXES
1. Net Profit
Augmented reality is a reference to media that superimposes digital lays of data, images,
or video over a physical object, much like in a 3D movie.
***** Use Consumer Behavior Challenge 3.12 Here
*****
Discussion Opportunity—Ask students to think of a case where a product has been positioned
recently (i.e., new product introduction or re-positioning of an existing product). How was it
positioned? What new market was pursued? How did you find out about this position or how
did you discover the position?
2. CB As I See It; Malaika Brengman, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Ambient cues in our surroundings, such as light, color, and sound, influence consumer
behavior. Perception is formed not only through our eyes, but in our brain, and affects
our thoughts and feelings.
3. Marketing Opportunity
The proliferation of touchscreens on devices is an outgrowth of the natural user interface
philosophy of computer design, which incorporates human movements that are intuitive.
4. Marketing Opportunity
Some companies try to hide price increases by decreasing package size. However, when
the economy is strong, marketers promote original package size with terms such as
“jumbo”.
5. Marketing Opportunity
People who use a DVR are more likely to fast-forward through ads that are not
interesting. Ads that start with a captivating story are more likely to hold attention.
6. CB As I See It: Michel Wedel., University of Maryland
Marketers use the new field of automated attention analysis, the automated recording of
how long people look at images, words, people, places and products, and how the body
physically reacts to stimulus. Marketers use this data to better tailor products to
individual consumer’s momentary interests and experiences.