Perception

Chapter 2

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 Perception & Perceptual Process
Perception: The process by which stimuli are selected, organized
and interpreted

The Perceptual Process

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 Sensory Marketing

Sensory Marketing: Using consumer senses (or the impact of

sensation) to influence their behavior

Hedonic consumption:
Consumption of products/services for sensory pleasure and emotional
value (or fantasies they generate)

Hedonic value = sensory pleasure, emotional, or aesthetic value

Utilitarian value = practical product benefits

Go with a multisensory approach (that appeals to multiple senses

of consumers) to achieve a maximum emotional impact

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 Sight

• Visual information (color, size, form, symmetry,

proportion,..) determines product aesthetics &
evokes feelings/emotions

• Visual cues (lighting, color, layout, ..) in a retail

environment influence the shopper’s mood,
which in turn can affect buying behavior.

• Color influences physiological responses and moods.

- Warm colors (red, orange, and yellow) encourage activity and
excitement; cool colors (green, blue, and violet) are more soothing
and relaxing.
- Richer colors and darker colors evoke more excitement

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 Smell
Smell is closely linked to emotions.

Scent marketing (or Scent Branding)

Using scents to evoke a positive emotion that can be associated with
a brand or store..

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 Smell
• Ambient scenting allows consumers to make deeper brand connections.
Perfumer Pascal Gaurin created a fragrance for Samsung Stores (BW, 2010)
- Customers under the subtle influence of his creation spent an average of 20 to 30%
more time mingling among the electronics.
- They also associated the scent – and by extension, the brand – with characteristics
such as innovation and excellence.

• Scent marketing has a positive impact on in-store behavior (Spangenberg et al.,

1996)
- Shoppers perceived their browsing time less when pleasant aromas were used. It
improved their overall perception of the environment and merchandise. It also had a
positive influence on their likelihood to revisit the store.

• Gender-congruent scent influences in-store behavior (Spangenberg et al., 2006)

- Both men and women browsed longer and spent more money when a gender-
congruent fragrance - vanilla for women and rose maroc for men - was used to
scent the store atmosphere (compared to when a gender incongruent fragrance
was used).

• Scent congruent with the brand image improves customer satisfaction, intention to
revisit the store, and perceptions of product and service (Errajaa et al., 2020) 6
 Smell

• More examples of scent marketing

- Abercrombie & Fitch

A woody aroma – a combination of orange, fir resin, and Brazilian
rosewood, .. in its stores
- Sheraton Hotels & Resorts
Employs a welcoming warmth, a mix of fig, jasmine, and freesia
- Westin Hotel & Resorts
Disperses the smell of white tea.
- Cadillac
Puts a scent called Nuance into its leather seats – a smell of
expensive upholstery

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 Hearing
• Music affects feelings and behaviors
- Fast tempo music = more stimulating;
- slow tempo music= more relaxing
- A fast tempo music creates more rapid traffic flow; a slow tempo music can
increase sales b/c it encourages leisurely shopping.

• Music can affect moods

- Likable and familiar music can induce good moods, whereas sounds and
music in disliked style can induce bad moods.

• Sound logos
- Brand sounds to promote brand recognition and/or +ve brand perception
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• Crisp sounding packaging for food products is associated with freshness (e.g.,
Packaging for Doritos snacks)

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 Touch
• Touching affects the product experience
- Consumers rely on touch to make more accurate
product judgment
- When considering products with material
properties (e.g., clothing), consumers prefer
goods they can touch.
- Vicarious touch is better than no touch.

• In a British grocery chain, wrapping from toilet tissue was

removed to encourage customers to compare textures
- Soaring sales for the in-store brand resulted in a 50% increase.

• Consumers who are touched by the salesperson are more likely to have +ve
feelings and are more likely to evaluate both the store and the salesperson
positively (Hornik, 1992).

• Touch results in more tips (Hornik, 1992).

• Touch results in more alcohol consumption when touched by waitress

(Kaufman & Mahoney, 1999).
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 Taste

• Taste perceptions are most important for food and beverage

marketers
e.g., The major challenge for marketers is to provide healthier foods
that still taste good.

• In-store product tasting is a highly effective marketing tactic for

making consumers buy

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 Exposure

Exposure:
Exposure occurs when a stimulus comes within the
range of someone’s sensory receptors

Selective Exposure:
Consumers will actively choose whether or not to expose
themselves to information

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 Exposure
The highly selective nature of consumer exposure:
- Canadian TV viewers always or almost always leave the room (20%), channel
surf (30%), mute the volume (15%) or look at the phone/tablet/PC (50%) during
ad breaks (Deloitte Global, 2018).
- DVRs or Smart TVs are found in 60% of Canadian homes. Of these 80% watch
recorded shows and use the fast-forward function (Deloitte Global, 2018).
- Close to 62% of Canadian adults subscribe to at least one streaming service
(52% have a Netflix and 27% have an Amazon Prime account) (Vancouver Is
Awesome, 2022)
- Ad Blocking:
PC adblocking by 46% of Canadians; Mobile adblocking by 23% of Canadians
in 2018 (Statistica, 2022)

- The ave. CTR for a typical display ad is 0.1% (The Daily Campaigner, 2018).
- Eight percent of Internet users account for 85% of clicks (Ankur Warikoo, 2009).
- Up to 50% of clicks on mobile banner ads are accidental (Google, 2015).
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 Exposure
To combat audience erosion:

- Give stronger sensations: Bigger more colourful ads, stunning visuals,

interstitial ads, ….
- Rich media ads: Animation, video and sound with interactive features
- A wide placement of ads: More ads are placed in all kinds of non-
traditional places.
Product placement highly popular
- More targeted advertising: Delivering ads to the people who are most
likely to respond.
Search engines and social media use users’ demographic,
psychographic profiles, history of websites visited, Web contents
viewed, product information searched, etc. to deliver relevant ads.

Contextual Ads: Ads on the Web pages whose content is related to the
product featured in the ad.

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 Exposure
To combat audience erosion:

- Use social media influencers

Kylie Jenner and Dwayne Johnson each have close to 400 million
Instagram followers.

- Viral (Buzz) ads: Ads that merge advertising and

entertainment.
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- Guerrilla ads: Unconventional ads targeting consumers where they

wouldn’t be expecting. Ads need to be creative, unique, or
provocative to generate buzz.
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 Attention

Attention: The degree to which consumers focus on

stimuli

Perceptual Selectivity (Selective Attention)

Consumers pay attention to only a small portion of the
stimuli to which they are exposed.

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 Attention
To combat perceptual selectivity, use:
• Salient stimuli - unusual, surprising, changing, moving, bright,
intense, novel…
Some products, packages, and ads stick out and grab our attention
because they are different.
• Vivid stimuli - Imagery provoking, concrete, easy to picture and think
about
• Pleasant stimuli - Use attractive models, familiar songs, and humour

Six Principles of Sticky Ideas (Heath & Heath, 2007)

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 Attention
Shockvertising: Designed to cause controversy and leave a long lasting
impression
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 Interpretation

Interpretation
The process through which consumers assign meanings
to stimuli.

Gestalt Theory: Consumers organize stimuli into a

unified whole and then derive meaning from this unified
whole.

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 Interpretation

Some principles of organization

Proximity – Objects are associated because of their closeness

Contextual priming effect: refers to the impact that the content of the
material surrounding an ad. has on the interpretation of the ad

Similarity – Objects are grouped because of their similarity

Contrast (Figure-Ground) – consumers distinguish the figure from the

background. The figure has to be the brand

Closure – consumers tend to fill in the missing elements

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Application of the principle of closure

Heinz Bottle Closure

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 Interpretation
Interpretation
• Categorization – Consumers tend to put objects into
logical categories of meaning
- Once we categorize something as a member of a certain
category, we may retrieve our evaluation (or meanings)
of the category and assign the meanings to the object.

Schema = A set of beliefs and feelings that a consumer

has about an object, person, product category, …

- Affective and cognitive interpretation

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 Interpretation
Interpretation

• Inference – Interpretations consumers form based on

external stimuli (information)

Consumers develop inferences about brands and stores

based on word-of-mouth (WOM) communications,
advertising, observable product information (e.g., brand
name, packaging, price, country of origin), etc.

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