Chapter 3

1. Chapter 3 Consumer Perception Consumer Perception

2. Snapshot from the Marketplace • The U.S. auto industry, for years, has suffered a low-quality image perception. • In 2007, domestic automakers took steps to adopt new technologies and innovations. • Among these steps was the development of hybrid and electric cars. • In the battle of American brands against imports, GM and Ford performed remarkably. • In view of rising oil prices, success speculation for hybrid/electric cars is certain.

3. Q. 1. Define Perception.

4. What Is Perception? • The process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting sensation into a meaningful whole

5. What is Perception? (cont’d) • Although our senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch) play a major role in our comprehension of an event, our interpretation of the sensation may distort the intended message. • Our frame of reference affects how we interpret a message.

6. Three Concepts Related to Perception • Exposure • The act of deliberately or accidentally coming into contact with stimuli • Attention • The allocation of mental capacity to a stimulus • Planned, involuntary, and spontaneous attention • Sensation • Responses of the sensory receptors to a stimulus and transmission of this information to the brain

7. Q. 2. What are the five sense that are influenced by marketing?

8. Eye Ear Nose Mouth Skin Sight Sound Smell Taste Touch Exposure toRaw Data Processingof Inputs Interpretationof Inputs Sensory Systems

14. Vision • 80 percent of what we receive from our environment is gained from vision. • Visual perception is a multi-dimensional process involving observation of many product aspects such as its color, size, shape, and movement.

15. Smell • Scents can stir emotions, elicit memories, produce hunger, induce relaxation, or even repel us. • Responses to scents are culturally programmed, based on prior association between the aroma and the occasion/emotion that surrounded the smell.

16. Taste • Receptors residing on the tongue and palate combine with smell to produce the familiar taste sensations. • Acceptance of new or unfamiliar taste sensations can be learned through familiarity. • The new electronic tongue innovation is being used by the food and beverage industry to monitor product flavors.

17. Sound • Speech and music are two important weapons in the marketer’s arsenal. • Speech is a cognitive process that involves the use of words, syntax, and mode of delivery to communicate meaning. • Music, on the other hand, evokes feelings, stirs relevant emotions, or sets a desired mood to facilitate message reception.

18. Touch • Touch is part of the exploratory nature of human beings. • Physical contact with products provides consumers with vital information. • Electronic or catalog shopping neglects the importance of product exploration and active touching that many consumers desire.

19. Input Variation: Effect on Sensation • Sensation depends on input variation • As sensory input decreases, our ability to detect change increases • Implications for advertising: • Perceptual Overloading: the inability to perceive all stimuli competing for one’s attention • Perceptual Vigilance: the ability to disregard much of the stimulation one receives

20. Stimulus & Individual Factors of Perception In the traditional view, two factors combine to produce perception: • Stimulus Factors • The physical characteristics of an object such as its size, color, and shape that produce a physiological impulse in an individual • Individual Factors • Qualities of individuals such as their needs, interests, and experiences that influence their interpretation of the impulse

21. Top-Down and Bottom-Up Processing • Two different pathways sensory inputs take before perception is formulated: • Bottom-up processing—information processing proceeds from the stimulus factors to construct the resulting recognition • Top-down processing—information processing proceeds from the individual factors to construct the resulting recognition

22. Bottom-Up and Top-Down Processing Consumer Recognition Pattern Consumer Recognition Pattern Goals Experience Expectations Shape Color Size Stimulus Properties Properties Stimulus Properties

23. Q. 3. What are the three types of sensory thresholds?

24. Threshold Levels • Absolute Threshold • Lowest intensity level at which one can detect a stimulus • Terminal Threshold • A point beyond which intensity increases of a stimulus produce no greater sensation • Differential Threshold (JND) • The smallest increment in the intensity of a stimulus that one can detect

25. Applications of the JND to Marketing • Price changes: to be effective, price discounts have to exceed the JND, whereas price increases should be below the JND • Changes in product/package sizes: companies often use a strategy of downsizing (unnoticeable decrease in package size or contents while maintaining the same price) to combat rising costs of ingredients • Weber’s Law: the JND is a function of the initial intensity

26. Sense Detection Modality Threshold Light A candle flame seen at 30 miles or a dark clear night. Sound The tick of a watch under quiet conditions at 20 feet. Taste One teaspoon of sugar in two gallons of water. Smell One drop of perfume diffused into the entire volume of a three-room apartment. Touch The wing of a bee falling on your back from a distance of one centimeter. Consumer Chronicles 8.4Some Approximate Detection Threshold Values CONSUMER CHRONICLES 8.4 Source: Donald H. McBurney and Virginia B. Collings, Introduction to Sensation/Perception (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1977), p. 7.

27. Q. 4. What are the steps in the perceptual process?

28. Perceptual Process (1 of 2) • Preattentive Processing • Exposure • Attention • Sensation • Perceptual Selection • Motives • Nature of the Stimulus

29. Perceptual Process (2 of 2) • Perceptual Organization (Gestalt Psychology) • Grouping • Figure and ground • Closure • Proximity • Context • Perceptual Interpretation and Elaboration • Perceptual inference • Elaboration

30. The Perceptual Process • Preattentive Processing • the simultaneous preconscious monitoring of all sensory channels for events that will require a shift in attention • Perceptual Selection • that portion of stimuli selected for conscious processing or focal attention • Perceptual Organization • how consumers classify perceptions into categories and apply prior knowledge about the categories to organize them. • Perceptual Interpretation and Elaboration • how consumers derive meaning from the totality of the perceptual information they receive at a given moment.

31. Three Concepts Related to Perception • Exposure • The act of deliberately or accidentally coming into contact with stimuli • Attention • The allocation of mental capacity to a stimulus • Planned, involuntary, and spontaneous attention • Sensation • Responses of the sensory receptors to a stimulus and transmission of this information to the brain

32. Perceptual Selectivity • Selective Exposure and Attention • A tendency of consumers to ignore stimuli that are unimportant to them • A tendency to heed information of interest as well as to avoid irrelevant or threatening information • Perceptual defense • Selective sensitization EnvironmentalStimuli SelectiveExposure SelectiveAttention Perception

33. Perceptual Selectivity (cont’d) • Selective Interpretation • Combining perceived stimuli with our prior learning, experience, expectations, and intentions to derive their meaning • Attention Stimulation • Placement, timing, and presentation of stimuli so that target consumers are most likely exposed to them • Adaptation Levels • Indifference to a stimulus to which one has become accustomed

34. Perceptual Organization • Consumers classify perceptions into categories • Consumers apply prior knowledge about categories to organize them • Categories are shaped by goals, values, or the need to respond • Categories are socially and culturally constructed and learned • Categorization involves comparison between a perceived target and categorical knowledge.

35. Gestalt Psychology • A modern view that we perceive cohesive wholes and formulate total impressions rather than note solitary stimuli • Some Gestalt principles: • Closure • Grouping • Proximity • Context • Figure and ground

36. Gestalt Principles • Closure: our tendency to perceive a complete object even thought some parts are missing • Grouping: our tendency to perceive large data chunks rather than small units • Proximity: objects close together seem to relate • Context: refers to the setting (e.g., the medium type) in which a stimulus (e.g., an ad) is presented • Figure and ground: objects or figures are perceived in relationship to background

37. Perceptual Organization • Grouping • Individuals assume that options found in proximity to one another go together. • Figure and ground • Individuals determine what aspects of stimuli they should focus on. • Closure • Individuals use partial cues to complete an image.

38. Exhibit 8.1A Classic Figure-and-Ground Problem

39. Perceptual Inferences • Beliefs we consciously or unconsciously assign to products, brands, stores, or firms based on previously acquired information and our own experiences • Halo effect: generalized impressions we form about products, brands, or stores to simply shopping

40. Perceptual Inference • Perceptual Inferences • Interpretations that go beyond the information given. • Inferences are influenced by: • Context, goals, prior knowledge, personal experiences • Marketing Implications • brand extensions • priming What flavor is this ice cream cone?

41. Elaboration • Elaboration: the extent to which perceptual stimuli are integrated with prior knowledge structure • High levels of elaboration lead to counterarguing, problem-solving, day-dreaming, and fantasizing • Low levels of elaboration involve simple recognition • A boomerang effect occurs when the attitude change is opposite to that advocated in the persuasive message.

42. Schema and Scripts • Consumers store in their memory categorized information about objects • Schema: a set of expectations maintained by consumers that provides a structure for evaluating and interpreting incoming information • Scripts: appropriate behaviors or steps that we expect to go through in order to perform a familiar task

43. Perception and Images • Image: the functional and psychological portrait that a stimulus paints in consumers’ minds • Imagery: the process by which we visualize sensory information in our working memory • Imagery plays a vital role in promotion • In advertising, imagery is created largely through illustrations • Imagery enhances comprehension and increases recall • Image protection, restoration, and enhancement are necessary strategies in today’s marketplace • Brand equity: the added value that a brand name brings to a product beyond the item’s functional value

44. Q. 5. What are the perceptual judgments and their relation to marketing strategies?

45. Perceptions of Quality • Intrinsic Cues of Product Quality • Extrinsic Cues of Product Quality: • Brand name • Price • Store image • Manufacturer’s image • Country of origin image

46. Product-Country Image Effects • Product-Country image effects reflect consumers’ use of country of origin or country of manufacture as a cue to infer beliefs about product attributes. • Product-Country image (PCI) is a schematic mental representation of a country’s people, products, culture, and national symbols. • Consumer voting captures the normative dimension of product-country images. By deciding to purchase or avoid a country’s products, consumers “vote” for or against the policies of its government.

47. Perception Video • Selective Attention Test of Perception

48. Q. 6. What are the five classes of situational variables?

49. Situational Influences on Perception • Situational variables are environmental circumstances that constitute the context within which purchases occur • They include: • Physical surroundings • Social surroundings • Task definition • Time perspective • Antecedent state

50. Q. 7. What are the components of price perception?