3-1 The document discusses consumer perception and the perception process. It covers how products and advertisements appeal to our different sensory systems like vision, smell, sound, touch, and taste. 3-2 It then explains the three stages of perception - exposure, attention, and interpretation. Exposure involves sensory thresholds and subliminal perception. Attention is influenced by personal selection factors and stimulus selection factors. Interpretation uses schemas and priming to organize and make sense of stimuli. 3-3 Semiotics, the study of signs and symbols, is also briefly discussed in terms of how messages have an object, sign, and interpretant. Overall, the document provides an overview of key concepts in consumer perception and sensory marketing.

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Chapter 2
Perception
Consumer Behavior
Buying, Having, and Being

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• What was Gary’s perception of Parmalat?
• Why is shelf-stable milk popular in Europe?
• In the focus group research, what were the
U.S. consumers’ perceptions of Parmalat?
• What is Parmalat doing to overcome the
obstacles associated with marketing shelf-
stable milk in the United States?
Opening Vignette: Parmalat

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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,
color, sound, odors, and textures
• Perception:
– The process by which sensations are selected, organized,
and interpreted
• The Study of Perception:
– Focuses on what we add to raw sensations to give them
meaning

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An Overview of the
Perception Process
Figure 2.1

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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.

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Advertisements Appeal to Our Sensory Systems
• This ad for a luxury car emphasizes the contribution
made by all of our senses to the evaluation of a driving
experience.

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Sensory Systems - Vision
• Marketers rely heavily on visual
elements in advertising, store design,
and packaging.
• Meanings are communicated on the
visual channel through a product’s
color, size, and styling.
• Colors may influence our emotions
more directly.
– Arousal and stimulated appetite (e.g. red)
– Relaxation (e.g. blue)

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Sensory Perceptions - Vision
• Some reactions to color 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 color 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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Sensory Perceptions - Vision
• Color plays a dominant role in Web page
design.
• Saturated colors (green, yellow, orange, and
cyan) are considered the best to capture
attention.
– Don’t overdo it. Extensive use of saturated colors can
overwhelm people and cause visual fatigue.
• Trade Dress:
– Colors that are strongly associated with a corporation, for
which the company may have exclusive rights for their use.
• (e.g. Kodak’s use of yellow, black, and red)

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• First Heinz gave us
“Blastin’ Green” ketchup
in a squeeze bottle. Now
they have introduced
“Funky Purple” ketchup.
• What sensory perception
is Heinz trying to appeal
to? Do you think this
product will be successful?
Why or why not?
Discussion Question

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Your Assignment
• Select three to five advertisements (in any
format) that target different sensory perceptions.
• Explain those advertisements in your own words
and describe how does it target different sensory
perceptions.

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Sensory Perceptions - Smell
• Odors can stir emotions or create a calming
feeling.
• Some responses to scents result from early
associations that call up good or bad
feelings.
• Marketers are finding ways to use smell:
– Scented clothes
– Scented stores
– Scented cars and planes
– Scented household products
– Scented advertisements

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Sensory Perceptions - Sound
• Advertising jingles create brand awareness.
• Background music creates desired moods.
• Sound affects people’s feelings and
behaviors.
• Muzak uses a system it calls “stimulus
progression” to increase the normally slower
tempo of workers during midmorning and
midafternoon time slots.
• Sound engineering:
– Top-end automakers are using focus groups of consumers
to help designers choose appropriate sounds to elicit the
proper response.

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Sensory Perceptions - Touch
• Relatively little research has been done on
the effects of tactile stimulation on the
consumer, but common observation tells
us that this sensory channel is important.
• People associate textures of fabrics and
other surfaces with product quality.
• Perceived richness or quality of the
material in clothing is linked to its “feel,”
whether rough or smooth.

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Applications of Touch Perceptions
• Kansai engineering: A
philosophy that
translates customers’
feelings into design
elements.
• Mazda Miata designers
discovered that making
the stick shift (shown
on the right) exactly 9.5
cm long conveys the
optimal feeling of
sportiness and control.

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Tactile Quality Associations
Table 2.1
Tactile Oppositions in Fabrics
Perception Male Female
High class Wool Silk Fine
Low class Denim Cotton
Heavy Light Coarse

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Sensory Perceptions - Taste
• Taste receptors contribute to our
experience of many products.
• Specialized companies called “flavor
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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Exposure
• Exposure:
– Occurs when a stimulus comes within the range of
someone’s sensory receptors
• Consumers concentrate on some
stimuli, are unaware of others, and
even go out of their way to ignore some
messages.

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Sensory Thresholds
• Psychophysics:
– The 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.
• Differential Threshold:
– The ability of a sensory system to detect changes or
differences between two stimuli. The minimum difference
that can be detected between two stimuli is known as the
j.n.d. (just noticeable difference).

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Weber’s Law
• The amount of change that is necessary to be
noticed is systematically related to the intensity of
the original stimulus
• The stronger the initial stimulus, the greater a
change must be for it to be noticed.
• Mathematically:
– K = A constant (varies across senses)
– Δi = The minimal change in the intensity required to produce j.n.d.
– I = the intensity of the stimulus where the change occurs
I
i
K



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Subliminal Perception
• Subliminal perception:
– Occurs when the stimulus is below the level of the
consumer’s awareness.
• Subliminal techniques:
– Embeds: Tiny figures that are inserted into magazine:
advertising by using high-speed photography or airbrushing.
• Does subliminal perception work?
– There is little evidence that subliminal stimuli can bring
about desired behavioral changes.

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Attention
• Attention:
– The extent to which processing activity is devoted
to a particular stimulus.
• Attention economy:
– The Internet has transformed the focus of
marketers from attracting dollars to attracting
eyeballs.
• Perceptual selection:
– People attend to only a small portion of the stimuli
to which they are exposed.

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Attention and Advertising
• Nike tries to cut through the clutter by spotlighting
maimed athletes instead of handsome models.

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Personal Selection Factors
• Experience:
– The result of acquiring and processing stimulation over
time
• Perceptual vigilance:
– Consumers are aware of stimuli that relate to their current
needs
• Perceptual defense:
– People see what they want to see - and don’t see what they
don’t want to see
• Adaptation:
– The degree to which consumers continue to notice a
stimulus over time

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Factors that Lead to Adaptation
• Intensity: Less-intense stimuli habituate because they have
less sensory impact.
• Duration: Stimuli that require relatively lengthy exposure in
order to be processed tend to habituate because they require a
long attention span.
• Discrimination: Simple stimuli tend to habituate because
they do not require attention to detail.
• Exposure: Frequently encountered stimuli tend to habituate
as the rate of exposure increases.
• Relevance: Stimuli that are irrelevant or unimportant will
habituate because they fail to attract attention.

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Stimulus Selection Factors
• Size:
– The size of the stimulus itself in contrast to the competition
helps to determine if it will command attention.
• Color:
– Color is a powerful way to draw attention to a product.
• Position:
– Stimuli that are present in places we’re more likely to look
stand a better chance of being noticed.
• Novelty:
– Stimuli that appear in unexpected ways or places tend to
grab our attention.

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Attention to Stimuli
• Interpretation:
– The meaning that we assign sensory stimuli.
• Schema:
– The meaning we assign to a stimulus depends on
the schema, or set of beliefs to which the stimulus
is assigned.
• Priming:
– Process by which certain properties of a stimulus
typically will evoke a schema, which leads
consumers to evaluate the stimulus in terms of
other stimulus they have encountered and believe
to be similar.

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Schema-Based Perception
• Advertisers know that consumers will often relate
an ad to preexisting schema in order to make sense
of it.

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The Priming Process

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Stimulus Organization
• A stimulus will be interpreted based on its
assumed relationship with other events,
sensations, or images.
• Closure Principle:
– People tend to perceive an incomplete picture as complete.
• Principle of Similarity:
– Consumers tend to group together objects that share the
same physical characteristics.
• Figure-ground Principle:
– One part of a stimulus will dominate (the figure) and other
parts will recede into the background (the ground).

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Gestalt Principle
• This Swedish ad relies upon gestalt perceptual
principles to insure that the perceiver organizes a
lot of separate images into a familiar image.

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Principle of Closure
• This Land Rover ad illustrates the use of the principle of
closure, in which people participate in the ad by
mentally filling in the gaps in the sentence.

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Figure-ground Principle
• This billboard for Wrangler jeans makes creative use of
the figure-ground principle.

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Semiotics: The Symbols Around Us
• Semiotics: Field of study that examines the
correspondence between signs and symbols
and their role in the assignment of meaning.
• A message has 3 components:
– 1) Object: the product that focuses the message
– 2) Sign: the sensory imagery that represents the
intended meanings of the object
– 3) Interpretant: the meaning derived

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Semiotic Components
Figure 2.2

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Summary
3-1 The design of a product often is a key driver of its success or failure.
3-2 Products and commercial messages often appeal to our senses, but because of the
profusion of these messages we don’t notice most of them.
3-3 Perception is a three-stage process that translates raw stimuli into meaning.
• Stage-1: Exposure
- Sensory Threshold
- Weber’s Law
- Subliminal Perception
• Stage-2: Attention
- Personal Selection Factors
- Factors that lead to adaptation
- Stimulus Selection Factors
• Stage-3: Interpretation
- Schema
- Priming
- Stimulus Organization