SUMMARY chapter 3 Book Consumer Behaviour PDF

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Riassunto del libro di Consumer Behavior: Buying, Having and Being. (SOLOMON). Edizione in inglese. Corso makreting in inglese. 1 anno di corso....

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CHAPTER 3 Perception. SENSATION. Sensation refers to the immediate response of our sensory receptors (eyes, ears, nose, mouth, fingers, skin) to basic stimuli such as light, color, sound, odor, and texture. Perception is the process by which people select, organize, and interpret these sensations. The study of perception, then, focuses on what we add to these raw sensations to give them meaning. Our brains receive external stimuli, or sensory inputs, on a number of channels. We may see a billboard, hear a jingle, feel the softness of a cashmere sweater, taste a new flavor of ice cream, or smell a leather jacket. These inputs are the raw data that begin the perceptual process. Sensory data from the external environment (e.g., hearing a tune on the radio) can generate internal sensory experiences. Marketers’ messages are more effective when they appeal to several senses. For example, in a recent study one group read ad copy for potato chips that only mentioned the taste, whereas another group’s ad copy emphasized the product’s smell and texture, in addition to its taste. The participants in the second group came away thinking the chips would taste better than did those whose ad message only focused on taste. Each product’s unique sensory qualities help it to stand out from the competition, especially if the brand creates a unique association with the sensation. The OwensCorning Fiberglass Corporation was the first company to trademark a color when it used bright pink for its insulation material; it adopted the Pink Panther as its spokes-character. Harley-Davidson actually tried (unsuccessfully) to trademark the distinctive sound a “hog” makes when it revs up. Hedonic Consumption. These responses are an important part of hedonic consumption: multisensory, fantasy, and emotional aspects of consumers’ interactions with products. The sensations we experience are context effects that subtly influence how we think about products we encounter. Here are some examples from consumer research: -

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Respondents evaluated products more harshly when they stood on a tile floor rather than a carpeted floor. Fans of romance movies rate them higher when they watch them in a cold room (the researchers explain this is because they compensate for the low physical temperature with psychological warmth the movie provides). When a product is scented, consumers are more likely to remember other attributes about it after they encounter it.

The sensory experiences we receive from products and services play an increasingly key role when we choose among competing options. As manufacturing costs go down and the amount of “stuff” that people accumulate goes up, consumers want to buy things that will provide hedonic value in addition to simply doing what they’re designed to do. The new focus on emotional experience is consistent with psychological research finding that people prefer additional experiences to additional possessions as their incomes rise.

In this environment, form is function. Two young entrepreneurs named Adam Lowry and Eric Ryan discovered that basic truth when they quit their day jobs to develop a line of house-cleaning products they called Method. For years, companies such as Procter & Gamble have plodded along, peddling boring boxes of soap powder to generations of housewives who suffered in silence, scrubbing and buffing, yearning for the daily respite of martini time. Lowry and Ryan gambled that they could offer an alternative: cleaners in exotic scents such as cucumber, lavender, and ylangylang that come in aesthetically pleasing bottles. The bet paid off. Within two years, the partners were cleaning up, taking in more than $2 million in revenue. Shortly thereafter, they hit it big when Target contracted to sell Method products in its stores. There’s a method to Target’s madness. Design is no longer the province of upper-crust sophisticates who never got close enough to a cleaning product to be revolted by it. In fact, recent research evidence suggests that our brains are wired to appreciate good design: Respondents who were hooked up to a brain apparatus called a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner showed faster reaction times when they saw aesthetically pleasing packages even compared to well-known brands such as Coca-Cola. Mass-market consumers thirst for great design, and they reward those companies that give it to them with their enthusiastic patronage and loyalty. From razor blades such as the Gillette Sensor to the Apple Watch and even to the lowly trashcan, design is substance. Form is function. Sensory Marketing. We live in the era of sensory marketing, where companies think carefully about the impact of sensations on our product experiences. From hotels to carmakers to brewers, companies recognize that our senses help us decide which products appeal to us—and which ones stand out from a host of similar offerings in the marketplace. In this section, we’ll take a closer look at how some smart marketers use our sensory systems to create a competitive advantage. Vision. Sure, Apple’s products usually work pretty well—but that’s not why many people buy them. Sleek styling and simple, compact features telegraph an aura of modernity, sophistication, and just plain “cool.” Marketers rely heavily on visual elements in advertising, store design, and packaging. They communicate meanings on the visual channel through a product’s color, size, and styling. Colors may even influence our emotions more directly. Evidence suggests that some colors (particularly red) create feelings of arousal and stimulate appetite, and others (such as blue) create more relaxing feelings. American Express launched its Blue card after its research found that people describe the color as “providing a sense of limitlessness and peace.” Advertisements of products presented against a backdrop of blue are better liked than the same ads shown against a red background, and cross-cultural research indicates a consistent preference for blue whether people live in Canada or Hong Kong. People even link moral judgments to colors; in a study, respondents evaluated undesirable consumer behaviors less negatively when described on a red (compared with green) background while they evaluated desirable consumer behaviors more positively when described on a green (compared with red) background. People who complete tasks when the words or images appear on red backgrounds perform better when they have to remember details; however, they excel at tasks requiring an imaginative response when the words or images are displayed on blue backgrounds. In one study, interior designers created bars decorated primarily in red, yellow, or blue and invited people to choose one to hang out in. More people chose the yellow and red rooms, and these guests were more social and active—and ate more. In contrast, partygoers in the blue room stayed longer.

In Western countries, black is the color of mourning, whereas in some Eastern countries, notably Japan, white plays this role. In addition, we associate the color black with power. Not surprisingly, there are gender differences in color preferences. People associate darker colors with males and lighter colors with females. Women are drawn toward brighter tones and they are more sensitive to subtle shadings and patterns. Some scientists attribute this to biology; females see color better than males do, and men are 16 times more likely to be color-blind. Age also influences our responsiveness to color. As we get older, our eyes mature and our vision takes on a yellow cast. Colors look duller to older people, so they prefer white and other bright tones. This helps to explain why mature consumers are much more likely to choose a white car; Lexus, which sells heavily in this market, makes 60 percent of its vehicles in white. The trend toward brighter and more complex colors also reflects the increasingly multicultural makeup of the United States. For example, Hispanics tend to prefer brighter colors as a reflection of the intense lighting conditions in Latin America; strong colors retain their character in strong sunlight. That’s why Procter & Gamble uses brighter colors in makeup it sells in Latin countries. We now know that perceptions of a color depend on both its physical wavelength and how the mind responds to that stimulus. Yellow is in the middle of wavelengths the human eye can detect, so it is the brightest and attracts attention. Because colors elicit such strong emotional reactions, the choice of a color palette is a key issue in package design. Companies used to arrive at these choices casually. For example, Campbell’s Soup made its familiar can in red and white because a company executive liked the football uniforms at Cornell University! Today, however, color choices are a serious business. These decisions help to “color” our expectations of what’s inside the package. Some color combinations come to be so strongly associated with a corporation that they become known as the company’s trade dress, and courts may even grant exclusive use of specific color combinations: Eastman Kodak’s trade dress protects its usage of its distinctive yellow, black, and red boxes. Of course, fashion trends strongly influence our color preferences, so it’s no surprise that we tend to encounter a “hot” color on clothing and in home designs in one season that something else replaces the next season (as when the fashionistas proclaim, “Brown is the new black!” or fans of the TV series counter with, “No, Orange is the New Black”). These styles do not happen by accident; most people don’t know (but now you do) that a handful of firms produce color forecasts that manufacturers and retailers buy so they can be sure they stock up on the next hot hue.

The Table below summarizes how experts link specific colors to marketing contexts:

Dollars and Scents. Odors stir emotions or create a calming feeling. They invoke memories or relieve stress. As scientists continue to discover the powerful effects of smell on behavior, marketers come up with ingenious ways to exploit these connections. This form of sensory marketing takes interesting turns as manufacturers find new ways to put scents into products, including men’s suits, lingerie, detergents, and aircraft cabins. And this just in: Burger King in Japan sells a “ Flame Grilled” fragrance to customers who want to smell like a Whopper. Retailers like Hugo Boss often pump a “signature” scent into their stores; one study reported that “warm scents” such as vanilla or cinnamon as opposed to “cool scents” such as peppermint enhance shoppers’ purchases of premium brands. Some of our responses to scents result from early associations that call up good or bad feelings, and that explains why businesses explore connections among smell, memory, and mood. Researchers for Folgers found that for many people the smell of coffee summons up childhood memories of their mothers cooking breakfast, so the aroma reminds them of home. We process fragrance cues in the limbic system, the most primitive part of the brain and the place where we experience immediate emotions. Sound. Sound BMW recently began to use an audio watermark at the end of TV and radio ads around the world. “The company wants to establish what the brand sounds like,” so all of its messages end with a melody “underscored by two distinctive bass tones that form the sound logo’s melodic and rhythmic basis.”.” Music and other sounds affect people’s feelings and behaviors. Some marketers who come up with brand names pay attention to sound symbolism; the process by which the way a word sounds influences our assumptions about what it describes and attributes, such as size. For example, consumers are more likely to recognize brand names that begin with a hard consonant like a K (Kellogg’s) or P (Pepsi). We also tend to associate certain vowel and consonant sounds (or phonemes) with perceptions of large and small size. Mental rehearsal of prices containing numbers with small phonemes results in overestimation of price discounts, whereas mental rehearsal of prices containing numbers with large phonemes results in underestimation.

Touch. It seems that encouraging shoppers to touch a product encourages them to imagine they own it, and researchers know that people value things more highly if they own them: This is known as the endowment effect. One set of researchers reported that participants who simply touched an item (an inexpensive coffee mug) for 30 seconds or less created a greater level of attachment to the product; this connection in turn boosted what they were willing to pay for it. Indeed, the power of touch even translates to online shopping where touchscreens create a stronger feeling of psychological ownership compared to products consumers explore using a touchpad or a mouse. Sensations that reach the skin, whether from a luxurious massage or the bite of a winter wind, stimulate or relax us. Some anthropologists view our experience of touch much like a primal language, one we learn well before writing and speech. Indeed, researchers are starting to identify the important role the haptic (touch) sense plays in consumer behavior. Haptic senses appear to moderate the relationship between product experience and judgment confidence. This confirms the common-sense notion that we’re more sure about what we perceive when we can touch it (a major problem for those who sell products online). Individuals who score high on a “Need for Touch” (NFT) scale are especially sensitive to the haptic dimension. These people respond positively to such statements as: -

When walking through stores, I can’t help touching all kinds of products; Touching products can be fun; I feel more comfortable purchasing a product after physically examining it.

Taste. Our taste receptors obviously contribute to our experience of many products. So-called “flavor houses” develop new concoctions to please the changing palates of consumers. Scientists are right behind them as they build new devices to test these flavors. Coca-Cola and PepsiCo use the tongue to test the quality of corn syrups, and Bristol-Myers Squibb and Roche use the device to formulate medicines that don’t taste bitter. Cultural factors also determine the tastes we find desirable. A food item’s image and the values we attach to it (such as how vegans regard beef menu items, which is not kindly) influence how we experience the actual taste. For example, consumers’ greater appreciation of different ethnic dishes contributes to increased desires for spicy foods, so the quest for the ultimate pepper sauce continues. THE STAGES OF PERCEPTION. Like computers, we undergo stages of information processing in which we input and store stimuli. Unlike computers, though, we do not passively process whatever information happens to be present. In the first place, we notice only a small number of the stimuli in our environment, simply because there are so many different ones out there vying for our attention. Of those we do notice, we attend to an even smaller number—and we might not process the stimuli that do enter consciousness objectively. Each individual interprets the meaning of a stimulus in a manner consistent with his or her own unique biases, needs, and experiences. As the following figure shows, these three stages of exposure, attention, and interpretation make up the process of perception.

Stage 1: 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. We notice stimuli that come within range for even a short time—if we so choose. However, getting a message noticed in such a short time (or even in a longer one) is no mean feat Sensory Thresholds. Before we consider what else people may choose not to perceive, let’s consider what they are capable of perceiving. By this we mean that stimuli may be above or below a person’s sensory threshold which is the point at which it is strong enough to make a conscious impact in his or her awareness. If you have ever blown a dog whistle and watched your pooch respond to a sound you cannot hear, you won’t be surprised to learn that there are some stimuli that people simply can’t perceive. Some of us pick up sensory information that others, whose sensory channels have diminished because of disability or age, cannot. The science of psychophysics focuses on how people integrate the physical environment into their personal, subjective worlds. The sound a dog whistle emits is at too high a frequency for human ears to pick up, so this stimulus is beyond our auditory absolute threshold. The absolute threshold is an important consideration when we design marketing stimuli. A highway billboard might have the most entertaining copy ever written, but this genius is wasted if the print is too small for passing motorists to see it. In contrast, the differential threshold refers to the ability of a sensory system to detect changes in or differences between two stimuli. The minimum difference we can detect between two stimuli is the just noticeable difference (j.n.d.). The dual issues of if and when consumers will notice a difference between two stimuli is relevant to many marketing situations. Sometimes a marketer may want to ensure that consumers notice a change, such as when a retailer offers merchandise at a discount. In other situations, the marketer may want to downplay the fact that it has made a change, such as when a store raises a price or a manufacturer reduces the size of a package. When a brand tries to modernize its logo, it has to walk a fine line because consumers tend to get tired of old-fashioned designs but they still want to be able to identify the familiar product. In the 19th century, a psychophysicist named Ernst Weber found that the amount of change required for the perceiver to notice a change systematically relates to the intensity of the original stimulus. The stronger the initial stimulus, the greater a change must be for us to notice it. This relationship is Weber’s Law. Consider how Weber’s Law works for a product when it goes on sale. If a retailer believes that a markdown should be at least 20 percent for the reduction to make an impact on shoppers, it should cut the price on a pair of socks that retails for $10 to $8 (a $2

discount) for shoppers to realize a difference. However, a sports coat that sells for $100 would not benefit from a $2 discount; the retailer would have to mark it down $20 to achieve the same impact. Weber’s Law, ironically, is a challenge to green marketers who try to reduce the sizes of packages when they produce concentrated (and more earth-friendly) versions of their products. Subliminal Perception. Most marketers want to create messages above consumers’ thresholds so people will notice them. Ironically, a good number of consumers instead believe that marketers design many advertising messages so they will be perceived unconsciously, or below the threshold of recognition. Another word for threshold is limen, and we term stimuli that fall below the limen subliminal. Subliminal perception refers to a stimulus below the level of the consumer’s awareness . This topic has captivated the public for more than 50 years, despite the fact that there is virtually no proof that this process has any effect on consumer behavior. Marketers supposedly send subliminal messages on both visual and aural channels. Some research by clinical psychologists suggests that subliminal messages can influence people under specific conditions, though it is doubtful that these techniques would be of much use in most marketing contexts. For this kind of message to have a prayer of working, an advertiser has to tailor it specifically to an individual rather than the mass messages suitable for the general public. The stimulus should also be as close to the liminal threshold as possible. Here are other discouraging factors: -

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There are wide individual differences in threshold levels. For a message to avoid conscious detection by consumers who have low thresholds, it would have to be so weak...