The importance of understanding perception in Buyer Behaviour

1. The MAANZ MXpress Program
Perception in Buyer Behaviour
Dr Brian Monger
Copyright June 2013.
This Power Point program and the associated documents remain the intellectual property and the
copyright of the author and of The Marketing Association of Australia and New Zealand Inc. These
notes may be used only for personal study and not in any education or training program. Persons and/or
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2. MAANZ International
• MAANZ International, is a Not for Profit, internet
based professional and educational institute which
has operated for over 25 years.
• MAANZ International offers Professional
Memberships;
• Marketing Courses (Formal and Short)
• And Marketing Publications
• www.marketing.org.au
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3. Dr. Brian Monger
• Brian Monger is the CEO of MAANZ International and a
Professional marketer and consultant with over 40 years
experience.
Marketing In Black and White 3

4. What is Perception?
Perception is “how we see the world around us.”
“Perception is the process by which an individual selects, organises
and interprets stimuli into a meaningful and coherent picture of
the world.”
Schiffman et al 2001, p. 148
“Perception is a process through which individuals are exposed to
information, attend to the information, and comprehend the
information”
J. C. Mowen 1995, p. 73
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5. The Customer as Perceiver
• Perception
– The process by which an individual selects, organises and
interprets information received from the environment
• Sensation
– attending to an object/event with one of five senses
• Organisation
– categorising by matching sensed stimulus with similar
object in memory, e.g. colour
• Interpretation
– attaching meaning to stimulus, making judgements as to
value and liking, e.g. bitter taste
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6. Individual Differences in Perception
Two people may be exposed to the same stimuli under
apparently the same conditions, but they may
• Select
• Organise and
• Interpret
these stimuli in quite different ways, depending on
their own needs, values and expectations
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7. We Perceive The Environment as
Follows:
Us
The
outside world:
external
stimuli
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8. Perception
SENSATION (EXPOSURE) - occurs when a
stimulus comes within our reach. (sensory
receptors).
May be random or deliberate.
– Sensory Receptors: eyes, ears, nose, mouth, skin etc.
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9. Perception
• Sensitivity to stimuli varies by:
• the quality of the individual’s sensory receptors
• the amount or the intensity of the stimuli
• the interest in the stimuli
• its ability to catch attention
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10. The Way We Perceive Things Is Related To:
• Personality
• Culture
• Upbringing (socialisation)
• Economic factors
• Needs and wants
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11. Perception
•Perception is not a function of sensory input alone, but
is the result of 2 different kinds of input and conditions:-
– Physical stimuli - e.g. sight, smell, sound etc.
– Inherent predispositions - experience, expectations, motives
& learning
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12. Information Processing Stages
• Exposure
– Target customer is in proximity of message when delivered
• Attention
– Target customer allocates cognitive processing capacity
• Comprehension
– Target customer interprets the message
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13. Information Processing Stages (cont.)
• Acceptance
– Does the target customer believe, agree with, or is s/he
persuaded by message, or do they disagree and dismiss it?
• Retention
– Target customer stores the advertisement and message in
memory so can be accessed when needed.
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14. Factors That Shape Perception
• Stimulus characteristics
• Sensory characteristics:
• Information content
• Context
• Customer characteristics
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15. Perceptual Interpretation
The assignment of meaning to sensations consists of:
• both a cognitive and affective (emotional) component
• is individual and personal
• is based on what we expect to see
• stimuli is often ambiguous, may be weak due to
interference
• the narrower our experience the more limited our
interpretation
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16. Perceptual Interpretation
• Distorting Influences
Physical Appearances
Stereotypes
Irrelevant Cues
First Impression - Tend to be lasting.
Jumping to Conclusions –
Halo Effect (Stimulus Generalisation) - Brand name
associations tend to link a number of different
products. True of famous brands.
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17. Perceptual Interpretation
Cognitive interpretation
• process whereby stimuli are placed in known
categories of meaning
– Lexical or semantic meaning
– Semiotic meaning - symbols
– Psychological meaning
• Affective interpretation
• the emotional or feeling response triggered by a
stimulus
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18. Biases in the Perceptual Process
• Selective exposure
– Customers only allow exposure to a small number of the
3000 daily marketing communications
• Selective attention
– Customers ignore ads that do not relate to their interests
• Selective interpretation
– Customers use perceptual distortion to make information
more congruent with existing beliefs
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19. We select what we perceive influenced by:
The nature of the stimulus factor such as size and intensity, colour and
movement, contrast, position, format etc.
Individual factors such as interest, need, expectation, previous experience
etc
Situational factors such as time pressure, contrast of the stimulus etc.
We also block what we don’t want to see or to avoid overload. We have
defences against what we don’t like or wish to know about.
Marketers need to be aware of this (i.e. in the road safety advertising
campaigns).
Perceptual Selection
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20. Buyer Imagery
• Buyers judge products related to their own personal
self image
• Self-Image
Actual self-image - how buyers actually see themselves
Ideal self-image - how buyers would like to see
themselves
Social self-image - how buyers feel others see them
Ideal social self-image - how buyers would like others
to see them
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21. Buyer Imagery (cont’d)
• Marketers deal with this issue by
Positioning product - to target buyer market niches.
Maintaining or enhancing brand image - to target
consumer self image.
Using perceptual mapping to compare products to
competitors.
And other aspects of marketing mix to satisfy buyer
image related to product
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22. Buyer Imagery
Positioning
• the image/perception of the Product in the mind of the
buyer
• marketers position goods/services/brands to fit a
specific target market through differentiation
• different positioning strategies can be used for the same
product targeting different segments
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23. Buyer Imagery
Perceptual mapping
• allows marketers to determine how their Products
appear to buyers in relation to competitive brands on
one or more characteristics
• provides insight about a market at a specific point in
time
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24. A Perceptual
Map
Perceived
Quality Factor
(High)
Low Product
Quality Factor
Perceived High
Value for Money
Perceived Low
Value for Money
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25. • For more information about MAANZ International and articles
about Marketing, visit:
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END
MAANZ MXPress Program