Exposure and Perception in Marketing ch. 3

Consumer Perceptions & Sensory Marketing

• Perception refers to the process where the human mind becomes aware of and interprets stimuli
• The perception process has 3 steps: exposure, attention, and interpretation

Exposure

• Exposure means a stimulus is within reach of one or more of the 5 senses: hearing, smelling, touching, and tasting
• A stimulus is any object or event in the external environment
• Exposure determines whether a consumer can sense a stimulus using their senses

Ways Marketers Expose Products

• Product display (eye sense): Brands compete for prominent shelf space in stores, i.e., eye-level
• Small brands and entrepreneurs showcase products at consumer events, such as art fairs and farmers markets
• Brands display products online via websites, commerce sites (e.g. Amazon) and social media
• Some brands launch as Web-Only, called digital natives, like Dollar Shave Club and Casper
• Product Sampling: It is needed when some products need exposure beyond visual appeal
• Product samples appeal to the sense of taste (food and drink), hearing (music), and smell (colognes)
• Product Sampling: The sense of touch is appealed to through skin products
• Brands attain exposure by providing consumers with small, free quantities of the product
• Advertising: It is the prime means of exposing a product to masses or niche segments
• Advertising is expensive, and its prevalence causes consumers to ignore most of it
• Creative and relevant advertising helps break through the clutter
• The right choice of media is critical for advertising exposure
• Product placement: It involves embedding the product into media content, featuring it being used by actors in a movie
• Product placement increases brand awareness and improves brand likeability if the actors are seen as aspirational
• Ambient advertising: It is a physical prop that resembles the product while blending into a public space
• An example is a sign that says "come closer. We need you" across the track at an underground station signed by a local funeral service

Attention

• Attention: It is the allocation of mental processing capacity
• When attention is given, the mind focuses on and processes the stimulus
• Stimuli must engage one or more of the five senses to be noticed

Factors to note for stimulus

• Vividness: It is a stimulus's intensity and distinctiveness, including bright colors, loud noises, or strong smells
• Contrast: It is a stimulus's distinct difference from its environment or background
• Contrast is a key element to producing a vividness effect
• Attention comes in two forms: voluntary and involuntary attention
• Voluntary attention: It is attention the consumer chooses to pay
• Involuntary attention: It is forced on the consumer

Interpretation

• Interpretation: It is the process and outcome of understanding the meaning of a stimulus

Factors That Affect Perception

• Stimulus Characteristics: It is the properties of the stimulus itself
• Stimulus characteristics can be sensory or informational
• Sensory characteristics: A characteristic is sensory if it stimulates any of the 5 senses
• Sensory characteristics influence perceptions and consumer responses through sensory experience
• Sensory experience refers to how we feel when a stimulus engages our senses
• People are biologically wired to find some sensory characteristics pleasant and unpleasant
• Cultural Symbolism: It is the meaning any characteristic has to a particular culture
• The focus is on the sensory characteristics of visual stimuli, which have color, shape, and texture
• Color meaning varies across cultures and is used by marketers to influence perceptions of their products
• Shape connotates different qualities in different cultures and is commonly used in clothes and car designs
• Texture, like silky textures in clothing, can be deemed luxurious
• Information content: It moves the interpretation process beyond sensation or stimulus selection
• Context: It refers to the setting or surrounding in which a stimulus exists and influences its interpretation
• Consumer Characteristics: It includes the consumer's own knowledge, interests, and experiences, influencing perception
• Consumer needs and involvement: These give relevance to stimuli
• Involvement: It is a state of mind in which a need is intensely felt or there is deep interest
• Needs and involvement affect attention and interpretations
• Consumer Sensory and cognitive skills: People differ in sensitivity of senses
• Some can smell mild aromas others cannot, people also have different hearing, vision, taste and touch
• People differ in cognitive skills, which is the mental ability to hold and process information
• Consumer Familiarity: This is with the stimulus category and has expertise on the topic, influencing interpretation
• Expertise: Helps consumers to more accurately categorize and evaluate

Perceptual Biases

• Selective Exposure (Avoiding Seeing Things): Consumers cope with 3,000 stimuli each day by choosing to see selectively
• Selective Attention (Avoiding Taking Note of Things): Consumers do not notice all stimuli
• Selective Interpretation (Avoiding Knowing the Inconvenient Truth): Consumers interpret the message that suits them
• Perceptual Distortion: It refers to information being included non-objectively
• Distortion occurs for two reasons:
  • Prior expectations and sensory habits: sensory systems get used to particular ways stimuli is presented
  • Prior Beliefs: The mind desires to hold onto its beliefs and reject anything that defies them

Perceptual Organization

• The mind organizes sensations in a sensible order by using three principles

Gestalt Perception

• Gestalt Perception is the general image formed in the mind
• Humans do not focus on details but rather base it on a pattern within the stimulus
• Consumers form this overall impression based on a few features or the image in an ad
• Consumers retain this overall impression of the advertised product

Figure and Ground

• This is the concept of figure in the ground, in any visual, something is the background (ground), and a focal object (figure)

Closure

• Closure Principle: Suggests that consumers have a natural tendency to complete a partial stimulus
• It is assumed that they are familiar with the complete stimulus, they use the memory to complete

Marketing Applications of Perception Process

• Psychology of perceptions focuses on how customers perceive prices psychologically through reference price and quality cues
• Reference Price: It is the price consumers expect to pay
  • It is perceived value if price is lower
• Internal reference price: The price we believe to be the right price
• External reference price: Which is the price the marketer uses to Anchor a price advantage
• Quality Cue: They often use price as a quality cue for quality inferences
• Consumers assume that high price means superior quality

Country of Origin Effects

• Consumers may hold bias to products or services based on the country goods originate from

Perceptual Maps and Positioning

• Perceptual Maps: They are visual depictions of customer perception on brands

Uses for Perceptual maps

• Know who your competitors are
• Know who your target market should be
• Modify the product
• Correct the miss perceptions

Positioning

Posititoning is defined as consumers perception of product relating to other brands concerning relevance in goals

• Positioning includes the selling features that associate wth the brand and their imager

Repositioning

• It is the changing of customer’s view of a brand

Functional benefits

• What qualities may have been left out or missed in the earlier perception

Symbolic Image

• Brands may position themself better and go beyond products

User image

• To make an image relevant in the mind of consumers

Usage Situation

• To promote an item within a situation that correlates to a particular lifestyle choice
• Brand Image and Brand Extensions: Brand name is the reflection of the brand promise

Sensory Marketing

• Marketers use senses in marketing to convey brand image and connect with consumers

Sound

• Marketers use jingles and music in advertisements to create the desirable mood

Taste

• Many companies introduce new food and drink with the same intent of expanding with food and beverage products

Smell

• A scent can attract clients into store

Touch

• Tactical sensations, a consumption experience to sell items of product

Sight and Visual Identity

• Visual identity is an impression to tell and separate the brand from like items in the related field

Experimental pleasure

• Create a visual reference to convey a related feeling about the store and product

Explore exposure strategies, sensory marketing, and challenges in advertising. Learn how companies use sampling, shelf placement, and online presence to reach consumers. Understand effective ways to capture consumer attention in a crowded market.