Chapter 5

Perception

CONSUMER
BEHAVIOR, 11e
Michael R. Solomon

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 2-1

 Learning Objectives
When you finish this chapter, you should
understand why:
• Perception is a three-stage process that
translates raw stimuli into meaning.
• Products and commercial messages often
appeal to our senses, but we won’t be
influenced by most of them.
• The design of a product today is a key driver
of its success or failure.

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Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 2-2
 Learning Objectives (continued)
• Subliminal advertising is a controversial—
but largely ineffective—way to talk to
consumers.
• We interpret the stimuli to which we do pay
attention according to learned patterns and
expectations.
• Marketers use symbols to create meaning.

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Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 2-3
Sensation & Perception

• Sensation
• Immediate response of our sensory
receptors …….eyes, ears, nose, mouth,
fingers……to basic external stimuli……
such as light, color, sound, odor, taste
and texture

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Sensation & Perception (Cont’d)
• Perception
• Process by which people select, organize, and
interpreted these sensations.
• Then study of perception focuses on what consumers add to
these raw sensations in order to give them meaning.
• Each individual interprets the meaning of the stimulus based
on his own biases, needs and experiences

Figure 2.1
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Sensory Marketing Systems
• Sensory marketing means that
companies pay extra attention
to how our sensations affect
our product experiences.

• Sources of external stimuli:

Advertisements, product packages,
radio and TV commercials,
billboards provide sensations

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Hedonic Consumption
• Hedonic consumption:
multisensory, fantasy, and
emotional aspects of consumers’
interactions with products.
• It involves use of a product to
fulfill fantasies and satisfy
emotions.
• This unique sensory quality of a
product helps to stand out from
the competition.

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 Learning Objective 1

• The design of a product is now a key driver of its

success or failure.

• This new era is of sensory marketing where

companies think carefully about the impact of
sensations on our product experiences.

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 Sensory Systems
Consumers’ senses play
a role in the decisions
marketers make
•Vision (color, size and
styling)
•Scent (fragrance)
•Sound (jingles)
•Touch (texture)
•Taste (flavor)
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 Vision (Color, Size and Styling)
• Color
• Marketers rely heavily on visual elements in
advertising, store design and packaging as
they communicate meaning on the visual
channel through product’s color, size and
styling.

• Color provokes emotions more directly.

• Some reactions to color come from learned

association: Black is the color of mourning in
west where in east white plays this role. 2-10
Vision (Continued)
Biological reactions:
•Women are drawn toward brighter tones and they
are more sensitive to subtle shadings and patterns.
•Female see color better than males do.
•Age also influences consumer’s responsiveness
to color- eyes get mature as we grow old, our eyes
get mature and our vision takes on yellow cast
Trade Dress: Some color combinations come to be
strongly associated with a corporation and courts may even
grant exclusive use of specific color combinations. (eg.
Kodak… Yellow, Black and Red boxes)

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Description of Colors:
• WHITE – White is associated with innocence, purity,
peace and contentment. It’s considered clean and
sterile. It’s cool and refreshing.
• BLACK – Black is the ultimate power color. It suggests
strength, authority, and elegance. Black has more
weight than other colors.
• GRAY or SILVER– Gray is considered traditional.
Business-wise, it symbolizes high tech and suggests
practicality, and creativity.
• GOLD – Gold suggests wealth. It’s considered to be
very classy.

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• BLUE – Blue is the favorite color of many businesses. It suggests
nature preserve and fiscal responsibility. It is the most popular and
second most powerful color.
• Dark and bright blues represent trust, security, faithfulness.
•Paler shades can imply freshness and cleanliness.

• RED – Red stimulates many kinds of appetites. Red commands

attention and alerts us.
Red symbolizes heat, fire, blood, love, power, excitement, energy,
passion, danger and aggressiveness.

•YELLOW –Yellow represents a warning, but it can also bring

happiness and warmth. The most preferred yellows are the creamy
and warm ones.
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• GREEN – People associate green with the color of money, as
well as nature.
Olive greens are associated with health and freshness — a
good choice for environmental concerns.
Businesses use it to communicate status and wealth.

BROWN – Brown is associated with nature and the earth. Dark

browns represent wood or leather. Brown and shades of
cream are associated with warmth and coziness.

ORANGE – Orange is associated with a sense of fun and

excitement.
• It can make an expensive product seem more affordable.

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Vision (Cont’d)
• Size
We tend to eat more:
• When food container is larger
• When we see variety of foods

•We focus on height rather than width when

pouring liquid into a glass

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 Vertical-Horizontal Illusion
• Which line is longer:
horizontal or vertical?
• Answer: both lines are
same length

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2) Scents (Fragrance)
Odors create mood and promote
memories: fragrance stimulates
limbic sense
Odor can affect our moods and
emotions.
They can invoke memories or relieve or
create stress.

Marketers are finding ways to use smell:

• Scented stores
• Scented household products

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 Learning Objective 2
• Products and commercial messages often
appeal to our senses, but because of the
abundance of these messages, most won’t
influence us.

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 Sound
Sound affects people’s feelings and behaviors
• Advertising jingles create brand awareness
• Telecommunication industry- ring tones
• Stores and restaurants often play certain
kinds of music to create a certain mood.

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Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 2-21
 Key Concepts in Use of Sound
• Audio watermarking: Brands can use audio
watermarking to encourage the retention of the message.
• It is the way of embedding information into a signal
(e.g audio) that is difficult to remove.
• If the signal is copied, then the information is also
carried in the copy. (Telenor music; Ufone )
Sound symbolism-
• Words that sound like what they mean is sound
symbolism. It is a way to influence brand image with
sound. Eg. Buzzz, (Sting energy drink)

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 Sound symbolism:

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 Key Concepts Used in Sound….
(Continued)
Phonemes:
• A phoneme is a unit of sound in speech.
• It doesn't have any inherent meaning by itself,
but when you put phonemes together, they can
make words. 
•Sounds can even influence how we feel about
size! Vowel and phonemes can even be
associated with perceptions of large and small.
(Magnum ice cream)

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 4) Touch
• Haptic senses—or “touch”—is the most basic of
senses; we learn this before vision and smell
• Haptic senses affect product experience and
judgment confidence.
• Participants who simply touch an item for 30
seconds or less had a greater level of attachment
with the product. This connection in turn boosted
what they were willing to pay for it.
• Kinsei engineering is a Japanese philosophy that
translates customers’ feelings into design elements.

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5) Taste
Flavor houses:
• They develop new mixtures for consumer palates.
•Consumers’ taste receptors contribute to their experience of many
products.
• Coca-Cola and PepsiCo use the tongue to test the quality of corn
syrups.
Cultural changes determine desirable tastes:
• A food item’s image and the values we attach to it influence how
we experience the actual taste.

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