Download consumer behavior solomon book chapter 3 14th edition and more Papers Consumer Behaviour in PDF only on Docsity!
Perceiving and
Making Meaning
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES When you finish reading this chapter, you should be able to:
3-1 Explain how consumer behavior is often shaped by sensory appeals that are often unnoticed. 3-2 Outline the three-stage process of perception that translates raw stimuli into meaning.
3-3 Discuss how the field of semiotics helps us understand how consumers create meaning out of symbols. 3-4 Describe how consumers play an active role in shaping brand meanings.
T
he European vacation has been wonderful, and this stop in Lisbon is no exception. Still, after two weeks of eating his way through some of the continent’s finest pastry shops and restaurants, Jamal’s getting a bit of a craving for his family’s favorite snack—a good old American box of Oreos and an ice-cold carton of milk. Unbeknownst to his partner, Badr, he had stashed away some cookies “just in case”; this was the time to break them out. Now all he needs is the milk. On an impulse, Jamal decides to surprise Badr with a mid-afternoon treat. He sneaks out of the hotel room while she’s napping and finds the nearest grosa. When he heads to the store’s small refrigerated section, though, he’s puzzled—no milk here. Undaunted, Jamal asks the clerk,“Leite, por favor?” The clerk quickly smiles and points to a rack in the middle of the store piled with little white square boxes. No, that can’t be right—Jamal resolves to work on his Portuguese. He repeats the question, and again he gets the same answer. Finally, he investigates, and sure enough, he sees that the labels say they contain something called Ultra High Temperature (UHT) milk. Nasty! Who in the world would drink milk out of a little box that’s been sitting on a warm shelf for who knows how long? Jamal dejectedly returns to the hotel, his snack-time fantasies crumbling like so many stale cookies.
Sensation
Products and commercial messages often appeal to our senses, but because of the profusion of these messages, we don’t notice most of them. Although it’s news to Jamal, many people in the world do drink milk out of a box every day. UHT, pasteurized milk that has been heated until the bacteria that cause it to spoil are destroyed, can last for
Source: LensKiss/Shutterstock.
OBJECTIVE 3- Explain how consumer behavior is often shaped by sensory appeals that are often unnoticed.
Chapter 3 • Perceiving and Making Meaning 61
5 to 6 months without refrigeration if unopened. The milk tastes slightly sweeter than fresh milk, but otherwise it’s basically the same. Shelf-stable milk is particularly popular in Europe, where there is less refrigerator space in homes and stores tend to carry less inventory than in the United States. Seven out of 10 Europeans drink it routinely. Manufacturers keep trying to crack the U.S. market as well, though analysts doubt their prospects. To begin with, milk consump- tion in the United States is declining steadily as teenagers choose soft drinks instead, even though the Milk Industry Foundation pumped $44 million into an advertising campaign to promote milk drinking (“Got Milk?”). Beyond that, it’s hard to convince Americans to drink milk out of a box. In focus groups, U.S. consumers say they have trouble believing the milk is not spoiled or unsafe. In addition, they consider the square, quart-sized boxes more suitable for dry food. Nonetheless, many schools and fast-food chains do buy UHT milk because of its long shelf life.^1 Although Americans may not think twice about drinking a McDonald’s McFlurry made with shelf-stable milk, it’s still going to be a long, uphill battle to change their minds about the proper partner for a bagful of Oreos. Whether we experience the taste of Oreos, the sight of a Chloé perfume ad, or the sound of Dua Lipa’s voice on her latest single, we live in a world overflowing with sensations. Wherever we turn, a symphony of colors, sounds, and odors bombards us. Some of the “notes” in this symphony occur naturally, such as the loud barking of a dog, the shades of the evening sky, or the heady smell of a rose bush. Others come from people: The person who plops down next to you in class might wear swirling tattoos, bright pink pants, and exude such an inebriating sweet smell of body lotion that you have a hard time concentrating. Marketers certainly contribute to this commotion. Consumers are never far from pop-up ads, product packages, sponsored posts on their social media feed, commer- cials in the middle of their music playlist, and billboards along the freeways or in the metro—all clamoring for our attention. Even movie theatres are getting into the act; some are installing moving seats, scent machines, and compressed air blasts to simulate the feeling of bullets flying by.^2 Especially after the COVID lockdowns, artistic venues, museums, and theatres all are trying to craft ever more sense-stimulating experiences to attract audiences. For instance, the Tate Museum in London developed the Tate Sensorium: Sensory design- ers worked alongside exhibit curators to create a multisensory augmentation of the museum’s artwork in which new technologies emotionally stimulate its visitors via all five senses—patrons could taste, smell, and touch the art in addition to looking at it. 3 Sometimes we go out of our way to experience “unusual” sensations: feeling a thrill from bungee jumping, playing virtual reality games, or going to theme parks such as Universal Studios, which (at least until COVID shut it down) offered “Fear Factor Live” attractions where vacationers could swallow gross things or perform stomach-churning stunts.^4 However, only a select few try to cram down as many peanut butter and banana sandwiches, Moon Pies, or cheesesteaks as (in)humanly possible in events sponsored by Major League Eating/Federation of Competitive Eating (MLE/FCE). Other sensation- seekers happily blast teeth-rattling Meek Mill cuts from their booming car speakers. Each of us copes with this sensory bombardment by paying attention to some stimuli and tuning out others. And the messages to which we do pay attention often wind up affecting us differently from what the sponsors intended; we each put our personal “spin” on things as we assign meanings consistent with our own unique experiences, biases, and desires. This chapter focuses on the process of how we absorb sensations and then use these to interpret the surrounding world. Sensation refers to the biochemical signals that our senses send to our brain for processing.^5 Our sensory receptors (eyes, ears, nose, mouth, fingers, and skin) capture
Chapter 3 • Perceiving and Making Meaning 63
- Surface color^ affects how people perceive an object. Consumers perceive a prod- uct to be larger when it is presented in a highly saturated color that captures their attention to a greater extent than a paler hue. As a result, they’re even willing to pay more for the saturated version even though both sizes are in fact the same.^10 - Materiality^ refers to the visual texture and reactance of the exterior surface of an object. - Location^ is the positioning, orientation, spacing, and movement of an object in relation to other objects within an area.
Colors may even influence our emotions more directly. Evi - dence suggests that some colors (particularly red) create feel- ings 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.”^11 Advertise- ments of products presented against a backdrop of blue are bet- ter 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. 12 People who complete tasks when the words or images appear on red backgrounds perform better when they must remember details; however, they excel at tasks requiring an imaginative response when the words or images are displayed on blue back- grounds. Olympic athletes who wear red uniforms are more likely to defeat competitors in blue uniforms, and men rate women who wear red as more attractive than those who wear blue. In one study, interior designers created bars decorated pri- marily 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.^13 Perhaps the moral is: Get your prof to give you multiple-choice exams on red paper, essays on blue paper, and then celebrate afterward in a yellow room! Some reactions to color come from learned associa- tions (which we’ll tackle in the next chapter). In Western coun- tries, black is the color of mourning, whereas in some Eastern countries, notably Japan, white plays this role. We now know that perceptions of a color depend on both its physical wavelength and how the mind responds to that stimu- lus. Yellow is in the middle of wavelengths the human eye can detect, so it is the brightest and attracts attention. The Yellow Pages originally were colored yellow to heighten the attention level of bored telephone operators. 15 Indeed, colors evoke such strong emotional reactions that some people who want to break their smartphone addictions turn their phone screens to gray- scale to make them less stimulating.^16
Of course, fashion trends strongly influence our color prefer- ences, so it’s no surprise that we tend to encounter a “hot” color on clothing and in home designs in one season that another color replaces the next season (as when the fashionistas proclaim,
We associate the color black with power. Teams in a variety of sports who wear black uniforms consistently rank near the top of their leagues in penalties during the season.^14 Source: Paolo Bona/Shutterstock.
The choice of a color palette is a key issue in package design. Companies used to arrive at these choices casually. For example, EasyJet paints its jets orange to project a fun, playful image. As Table 3.1 shows, these decisions help to “color” our expectations of what’s inside the package.^17 Source: Senohrabek/Shutterstock.
64 Section 2 • Making Sense of the World
“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. For example, Pantone, Inc. (one of these color arbiters) identified Viva Magenta as the Color of the Year for 2023. Reflect- ing the world’s steady recovery from the Pandemic, the company lyrically describes the color as “... a shade rooted in nature descending from the red family and expressive of a new signal of strength. Viva Magenta is brave and fearless, and a pulsating color whose exuberance promotes a joyous and optimistic celebration, writing a new narrative.”^18 In addition to color, other dimensions of visual aesthetics affect the inferences con- sumers make about a product. Recent research found evidence of an aesthetic bias : Product designs that are deemed more attractive lead us to think the product will also be more useful. 19 In fact, a product design can be so attractive that we mistake its appearance as a signal that the product has better functionality, even when no such information about functionality is available! The conclusion: It is easier than ever to cheaply produce prod- ucts that look aesthetically pleasing but have poor functionality. Fast fashion, anyone?
Dollars and Scents
Odors stir emotions or create a calming feeling. They invoke memories or relieve stress. In one study for instance, researchers experimentally associated a specific scent to either pens or facial tissues and found that the scent association made it easier for people who took part in the experiment to remember features of the product as much as two weeks later. 20 As scientists continue to discover the powerful effects of smell on behavior, marketers come up with ingenious ways to leverage 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.^21 One study found that consumers who viewed ads for either flowers or chocolate and who also were exposed to flowery or chocolaty odors spent more time processing the product information and were more likely to try different alternatives within each product category.^22 Another reported that subjects showed higher recall of a test brand’s attributes if it was embedded with a scent—and this effect persisted as long as two weeks after the experiment. 23 Retailers like Hugo Boss often pump a “signature”
Color Associations Marketing Applications Yellow Optimistic and youthful Used to grab window shoppers’ attention Red Energy Often seen in clearance sales Blue Trust and security Banks Green Wealth Used to create relaxation in stores Orange Aggressive Call to action: subscribe, buy or sell Black Powerful and sleek Luxury products Purple Soothing Beauty or anti-aging products Source: Data from Leo Widrich, “Why Is Facebook Blue? The Science Behind Colors in Marketing,” Fast Company (May 6, 2013).
TABLE 3.1 Marketing Applications of Colors
66 Section 2 • Making Sense of the World
Touch
Pretend for a moment that you are shopping online for a sweater. You navigate to www.landsend.com, scroll through the cardigans, and pause at one that appeals to you. You click the sweater for more information. A larger photo appears, and the caption reads: “Imagine holding this sweater, feeling the soft, 100% cotton in your hands.” What if you did as instructed? Would your perception of the sweater be any different than if you had not imagined feeling it? We tend to want to touch objects, although typing or using a mouse are skills we have to learn. The proliferation of touchscreens on computers, ATM machines, digital cameras, GPS devices, and e-readers is an outgrowth of the natural user interface philosophy of computer design. This approach incorporates habitual human move- ments that we don’t have to learn. Sony decided to offer touchscreens on its e-readers after its engineers repeat- edly observed people in focus groups automatically swipe the screen of its older, nontouch models. Touchscreens also appear on exercise machines, in hospitals, at airport check-in terminals, and on Virgin America airplanes. 33 It seems that encouraging shoppers to touch a prod- uct encourages them to imagine they own it, and research- ers know that people value things more highly if they own them: This is known as the endowment effect. One set of researchers reported that when participants simply touched an item (an inexpensive coffee mug) for 30 sec- onds, they had a greater level of attachment to the product; this connection, in turn, boosted what they were willing to pay for it. 34 Indeed, the power of touch even translates to online shopping, where touchscreens create a stronger feeling of psychological ownership compared to prod- ucts consumers explore using a touchpad or a mouse.^35 Some anthropologists view our experience of touch much like a primal language, one we learn well before writing and speech. Indeed, research- ers 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 commonsense notion that we’re surer 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.
36
Sensations that reach the skin, whether from a luxurious massage or the bite of a winter wind, stimulate or relax us. Researchers even have shown that touch can influence sales interactions. In one study, diners whom waitstaff touched gave big- ger tips, and the same researchers reported that food demonstrators in a supermarket who lightly touched customers had better luck in getting shoppers to try a new snack product and to redeem coupons for the brand. 37 On the other hand, an accidental touch from a stranger (especially a male) leads to more negative evaluations of products a shopper encounters in a store.^38 The COVID-19 pandemic made consumers especially leery to touch products in stores and even more leery to touch or be touched by other people. In general,
Consumers who participate in the creation of a product may experience a feeling of psychological ownership – even if a few parts are left over when they’re done! Source: Tirachard Kumtanom/Shutterstock.
Chapter 3 • Perceiving and Making Meaning 67
researchers have found that people like a product less and are less likely to buy it if another person has touched it earlier. Many studies have found evidence of this contamination effect : Consumers are less likely to want a T-shirt left on the return rack in a waiting room than the exact same T-shirt on the normal shopping rack. This contamination effect is stronger if the contaminator is in physical proximity.^39 And contamination even happens when the only thing left is evidence of prior touch, such as when shelf displays are messy and disorganized. 40 No wonder so many stores have sales attendants constantly reorganizing shelves during shopping hours! Some Japanese companies take the importance of touch a step farther via their practice of Kansei engineering , a philosophy that translates customers’ feelings into design elements. The designers of the Mazda Miata embraced aJapanese archery concept called Jinba Ittai. This phrase describes the experience of a mounted soldier as they become one with their mount—the horse learns to adjust his gait to enable the rider/soldier to release an arrow, so that even a slight shift in weight will cause the horse to react. Both horse and rider are united in one shared experience. 43 That’s the feeling the designers hoped to create for buyers of the Japanese sportscar. FYI: After extensive research, they discovered that making the stick shift exactly 9.5 centimeters long conveys the optimal feeling of sportiness and control. 44 The classic, contoured Coca-Cola bottle also attests to the power of touch. The bottle was designed approxi- mately 90 years ago to satisfy the request of a U.S. bottler for a soft-drink container that people could identify even in the dark.
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 consum- ers. Scientists are right behind them as they build new devices to test these flavors. Alpha M.O.S. sells a sophisticated electronic tongue for tasting, and the company is working on what its executives call an electronic mouth , complete with artificial saliva, to chew food and to dissect its flavor. 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 medi- cines that don’t taste bitter.^45
Buying, Having, Being
Haptically Attuned – and in Touch Recent research found that con- sumers are more responsive to marketing messages when the devices that deliver those mes- sages to them also provide haptic feedback.^42 To study this process, the researchers developed a mobile app through which they could con- trol how people received messages from them. Throughout the day, the participants would receive a message every hour giving them a random message encouraging them to exercise, eat healthier, etc. The next day, participants whose messages were accompanied by a vibration reported moving more, eating healthier, etc. The research- ers concluded that haptic vibrations or motions made the devices feel more personal and the interactions with them more intentional, so con- sumers were more likely to comply with the recommendations. Vibrat- ing messages can make us more compliant (or at least wake us up)!
During the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers were either not allowed or not willing to touch products. Indeed, surveys show that the majority of consumers prefer to shop at stores that offer contact-free payment options.^41 But how can you tell whether an avocado is ripe enough without touching it? Many grocery stores started putting ripeness labels on their fruits and other food items to help consumers know the ripeness without having to touch. Source: Patti McConville/Alamy Stock Photo.
Chapter 3 • Perceiving and Making Meaning 69
AR can be used in retail settings to facilitate product evaluation prior to purchase and to test its impact on sales. Recent research found that shoppers who are unfamiliar with a product and who experience it via AR are more likely to buy it. Presumably, AR reduces uncertainty and increases confidence in purchasing the product as it makes us more likely to try riskier options. Source: Tan, Yong-Chin, Sandeep R. Chandukala, and Srinivas K. Reddy (2022), “Augmented Reality in Retail and Its Impact on Sales,” Journal of Marketing, 86(1), 48–66.
AR apps open new worlds of information (and marketing com- munications). Do you want to test drive a Range Rover SUV using your smartphone?^53 Would you like to read the bio of the singer you see on a CD cover? Who painted that cool mural in your local bar? How much did that house you were looking at eventually sell for? Just point your smartphone at each and the information will be superim- posed on your screen. AR is about to be big business: Analysts project that revenue from AR apps will hit $26 billion by 2025.^54 The imminent explosion of virtual reality (VR) technology in the consumer market is also driving the integration between physical sensations and digital information. Unlike AR that delivers a com- bination of both sensory experiences, VR provides a totally immer - sive experience that transports the user into an entirely separate 3D environment. Facebook purchased the Oculus VR company in 2014, and this was just the first step in what promises to be an avalanche of commercially available VR technology from major companies, including Samsung, Sony, and Google. Worldwide revenues from VR applications are projected to exceed $12 billion by 2024. 55
The Stages of
Perception
Like computers, we undergo stages of infor- mation 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. Everyone interprets the meaning of a stimulus in a manner consistent with their own unique biases, needs, and experiences. As Figure 3.1 shows, these three stages of exposure , attention , and interpretation make up the process of perception.
At least within the next few years, you’ll probably live in AR through your smartphone or tablet. Apps like Google Goggles (for Android phones) and Layar (for Android and Apple devices) impose a layer of words and pictures on whatever you see in your phone’s viewer. Microsoft’s HoloLens technology blends holograms with what you see in your physical space so that you can manipulate digital images—for example, a user who wants to assemble a piece of furniture or fix a broken sink can actually “see” where each part connects to the next through the goggles.^52 Source: Rommel Canlas/123RF.
OBJECTIVE 3- Outline the three- stage process of perception that translates raw stimuli into meaning.
70 Section 2 • Making Sense of the World
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 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 their 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. It sounds like a great name for a rock band, but the absolute threshold refers to the minimum amount of stimulation a person can detect on a given sensory channel. 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
Figure 3.1 An Overview of the Perceptual Process Source: Inna Kharlamova/Shutterstock.
SENSORY STIMULI Sights
Eyes
SENSORY RECEPTORS
Smells
Nose
Sounds
Ears
Tastes
Mouth
Textures
Skin
EXPOSURE
ATTENTION
INTERPRETATION
72 Section 2 • Making Sense of the World
they squeeze products into little carry bags, or “healthier” because smaller amounts translate into fewer calories. For example, Kraft brought out “Fresh Stacks” pack- ages for its Nabisco Premium saltines and Honey Maid graham crackers. Each holds about 15 percent fewer crackers than the standard boxes for the same price. But Kraft notes that because the new packages include more sleeves of crackers, they are more portable—and the company notes that as an added benefit the smaller boxes supply crackers that will be fresher when you get around to eating them. A packaging expert noted that, typically, when the economy recovers, companies respond with a new “jumbo-size” product that is usually even more expensive per ounce. Then the process begins again: “It’s a continuous cycle, where at some point the smallest package offered becomes so small that perhaps they’re phased out and replaced by the medium-size package, which has been shrunk down.”^56 There’s even a term to describe this: shrinkflation.^57
The Myth of Subliminal Perception
Most marketers want to create messages above consumers’ thresh- olds so people will notice them. Ironically, a good number of con- sumers 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, even though there is virtually no proof that this process has any effect on consumer behavior. A survey of U.S. consumers found that almost two-thirds believe in the existence of subliminal adver - tising, and more than one-half are convinced that this technique can get them to buy things they do not really want. 58 ABC rejected a Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) commercial that invited viewers to slowly replay the ad to find a secret message,citing the net- work’s long-standing policy against subliminal advertising. KFC argued that the ad wasn’t subliminal at all because the company told viewers about the message and how to find it. The network wasn’t convinced. 59 Like the KFC ad, most examples of subliminal advertising that people “discover” are not subliminal at all—on the contrary, the images are quite apparent. Remember, if you can see it or hear it, it’s not subliminal ; the stimulus is above the level of conscious awareness. Nonetheless, the continuing controversy about sublimi- nal persuasion has been important in shaping the public’s beliefs about advertisers’ and marketers’ abilities to manipulate consumers against their will. A kerfuffle generated by a McDonald’s Happy Meal toy illus- trates that we tend to see or hear what we are looking for: When the company released a toy Minion (from the popular Despicable Me movie series), some outraged parents stated it was sending a “subliminal message” to their children. They claimed that it spoke gibberish that sounded a lot like “what the” and a word that rhymes with duck. McDonald’s response: “Minions speak ‘Minionese’ which is a random combination of many languages and nonsense
A lot of consumers (and marketing students) believe that logos containing “hidden” messages like this one are subliminal. Indeed, you have to look closely to see that the letters B and R for Baskin Robbins are surrounding the numbers 31 —the number of flavors the ice cream chain sells. But if you can see it or hear it (even with some effort), it’s NOT subliminal! Source: Jatuporn Chainiramitkul/Shutterstock.
The 1950s and 1960s were the heyday of the widespread belief that marketers were inserting subtle messages into movies and TV shows. This idea was later debunked, but a lot of people nonetheless continue to believe that subliminal persuasion is common. Source: Walter Daran/ The Chronicle Collection/Getty Images.
Chapter 3 • Perceiving and Making Meaning 73
words and sounds.... Any perceived similarities to words used within the English language is purely coincidental.”^60
The Truth: Pre-Attentive Processing
Whereas subliminal advertising is largely a myth, there is plenty of scientific evidence for the process called pre-attentive processing : We are able to process information and develop positive brand responses even when we are not directly or deliberately paying attention to a brand message. Researchers found that visuals or emotionally strong words that are on the periphery of what we’re actually looking at can make us think about them, even when we’re not aware that we saw them.^61 This type of unconscious processing explains why many advertisers are placing ads next to content in print media or in our social media feeds.
Stage 2: Attention
As you sit in a lecture, you might find your mind wandering (yes, even you!). One minute you are concentrating on the professor’s words, and the next you catch yourself daydreaming about the upcoming weekend (and sneaking the obligatory peek at your Instagram page). Suddenly, you tune back in as you hear your name being spoken. Fortunately, it’s a false alarm—the professor has called on another “victim” who has the same first name. But she’s got your attention now. Attention refers to the extent to which processing activity is devoted to a par- ticular stimulus. As you know from sitting through both interesting and “less inter- esting” lectures, this allocation can vary depending on both the characteristics of the stimulus (i.e., the lecture itself) and the recipient (i.e., your mental state at the time). Although we live in an “information society,” we can have too much of a good thing. Consumers often experience sensory overload ; we are exposed to far more information than we can process. In our society, much of this bombardment comes from commercial sources, and the competition for our attention steadily increases. Here’s a fact: American adults spend almost half of every day interacting with media. 62 Indeed, they devote 44 percent of the total minutes available in a day to watching screens. As you might guess, media usage spiked even higher during the pandemic lockdown years.^63 The average adult is exposed to about 3,500 pieces of advertising information every single day—up from about 560 per day 30 years ago. That means the fight for your attention—or what some marketers refer to as an eyeball economy —gets tougher every day. In fact, recent research shows that the mere presence of one’s phone near us results in brain drain : a deficit of cognitive resources.^64 Even when we can resist the temptation to check our phones, keeping these devices nearby, even silent and no vibrations, reduces available cognitive capacity. Turns out your phone eats up an increasingly large portion of your brain power, even when it is set to silent or even turned off! So don’t just put down your phone, put it away!
Multitasking
Pedtextrian. Text-walker. Wexting. Whatever you call it, walking while texting is becoming a public health problem. Due to a spike in pedestrian deaths, Honolulu became the first city to outlaw this practice. 65 Paying attention to where you’re going seems so... 2008. Today we consume three times as much information each day as people did in
- We constantly shift attention: Computer users at work change windows or check email or other programs nearly 37 times an hour. Computer users visit an average of 40 websites a day.^66
Chapter 3 • Perceiving and Making Meaning 75
Because the brain’s capacity to process information is limited, consumers are selective about what they pay atten- tion to. The process of perceptual selection means that people attend to only a small portion of the stimuli to which they are exposed. Consumers pick and choose among stimuli to avoid being overwhelmed. But how do we choose? Both personal and stimulus factors help to decide.
Getting Attention
Marketers work hard to test and create messages and pack- ages that will have a better chance to cut through the clutter. For example, when researchers used infrared eye-tracking equipment to measure what ads consumers look at, they found that visually complex ads are more likely to capture attention.^72 In general, we are more likely to notice stimuli that differ from others around them (remember Weber’s Law). A mes- sage creates contrast in several ways:
- Size^ – The size of the stimulus itself in contrast to that of the competition helps to determine whether it will command attention. Readership of a magazine ad increases in proportion to the size of the ad.^73 - Color^ – As we’ve seen, color is a powerful way to draw attention to a product or to give it a distinct identity. Black & Decker developed a line of tools it called DeWalt to target the residential construction industry. The company colored the new line yel- low instead of black; this made the equipment stand out against other “dull” tools. 74 - Position^ – Not surprisingly, we stand a better chance of noticing stimuli that are in places where we’re more likely to look. That’s why the competition is so heated among suppliers to have their products displayed in stores at eye level. In maga- zines, ads that are placed toward the front of the issue, preferably on the right-hand side, also win out in the race for readers’ attention. (Hint: The next time you read a magazine, notice which pages you’re more likely to spend time looking at.)^75 A study that tracked consumers’ eye movements as they scanned telephone directories also illustrated the importance of message position. Consumers scanned listings in alphabetical order, and they noticed 93 percent of quarter-page display ads but only 26 percent of plain listings. Their eyes were drawn to color ads first, and these were viewed longer than black-and-white ones. In addition, subjects spent 54 percent more time viewing ads for businesses they ended up choosing, which illustrates the influence of attention on subsequent product choice.^76 Another study reported that advertisers can increase brand recall and choice if they change the location of brand logos and product depictions across ad exposures.^77 And products that are located in the center of a person’s field of vision are more likely to receive attention.^78 Position also is important in online advertising. Sophisticated eye-tracking studies clearly show that most search engine users view only a limited number of search results. When the typical shopper looks at a search page, their eye trav- els across the top of the search result, returns to the left of the screen, and then travels down to the last item shown on the screen without scrolling. - Novelty^ – Stimuli that appear in unexpected ways or places tend to grab our attention. Packages that “stand out” visually on store shelves have an advantage, especially when the consumer doesn’t have a strong preference for brands in the category and they need to make rapid decisions.^79 One solution is to put ads in
Is this dress white and gold, or blue and black? Many people engaged in a fierce online debate about the answer. Which colors do you see? Hint: The company that made the dress describes it on its website as “Royal Blue.” Source: Amina Khan/National Science Foundation.
Buying, Having, Being
Mind If I Interrupt? One study indicates that novelty in the form of interruptions actu- ally intensifies our experiences. According to this research, people actually enjoy TV shows more when commercials interrupt them. A group of undergraduates watched an episode of an old sitcom (Taxi) with which they were unfamiliar. Half viewed the original broadcast, which included ads for a jeweler, a lawyer, and other businesses; the other half saw the show with all commercials deleted. Students who saw the orig- inal gave it higher evaluations. The researchers found a similar pattern when they interrupted people who were getting a massage. In contrast, subjects reported that the irritating sound of a vacuum cleaner was even worse when they got a break from listening to it and then had to hear it resume! The researchers interpret these results as the out- come of adaptation: We experience events more intensely at first but then get used to them. When we experience an interruption and then start over, we revert to the original intensity level.^80
76 Section 2 • Making Sense of the World
unconventional places, where there will be less competition for attention. These places include the backs of shopping carts, walls of tunnels, floors of sports stadiums, and, yes, even public restrooms.^81 An outdoor advertising agency in London constructs huge ads in deserts and farm fields adjacent to airports so that passengers who look out the window can’t help but pay attention. It prints the digital ads on pieces of PVC mesh that sit on frames a few inches above the ground. 82
Losing Attention
As riveting as a sight or sound may be, over time we may no longer notice it nearly as much as when we were first exposed to it. Why is this? One factor is adaptation , which is the degree to which consumers continue to notice a stimulus over time. The process of adaptation occurs when we no longer pay attention to a stimulus because it is so familiar. A consumer can “habituate” and require increasingly stronger “doses” of a stimulus to notice it. A commuter who is en route to work might read a billboard message when the board is first installed, but after a few days, it simply becomes part of the passing scenery. Several factors can lead to adaptation:
- Intensity^ – Less-intense stimuli (e.g., soft sounds or dim colors) habituate because they have less sensory impact. - Discrimination^ – Simple stimuli habituate because they do not require attention to detail. - Exposure^ – Frequently encountered stimuli habituate as the rate of exposure increases. - Relevance^ – Stimuli that are irrelevant or unimportant habituate because they fail to attract attention.
Stage 3: Interpretation
Now that a person has noticed a stimulus and allocated cognitive resources to pay attention to it, the final stage of interpretation kicks in. This is a crucial step, where the perceiver decides what this stimulus means. All of a marketer’s efforts to construct and deliver a message that will break through the clutter and focus the customer’s attention will be for nothing if the receiver misunderstands (or can’t understand) the intended message. The meaning we assign to a stimulus depends on the schema , or set of beliefs, to which we assign it. This in turn leads us to compare the stimulus to other similar ones we encountered in the past. As a result, interpretation is very much based on our subjective experiences, our cultural background, our personal sensitivities, our expectations, etc. Two people can see or hear the same event, but their interpretation of it can be as different as night and day, depending on what they had expected the stimulus to be. In one study, children aged three to five who ate McDonald’s French fries served in a McDonald’s bag overwhelmingly thought they tasted better than those who ate the same fries out of a plain white bag. Even carrots tasted better when they came out of a McDonald’s bag—more than half the kids preferred them to the same carrots served in a plain package! Ronald would be proud.^84 Another experiment demonstrated how our assumptions influence our experi- ences; in this case, the study altered beer drinkers’ taste preferences simply by telling
Buying, Having, Being
Pay Attention to That Warning! A recent study used eye tracking and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess how much people paid attention to and com- ply with security warnings—the kind that pop up on our electronic devices to warn us about privacy permission.^83 The researchers tracked participants’ responses over the course of a five-day workweek and used these advanced tech- niques to provide neural insights into the process of habitation. Their studies provide clear evidence that the more people are exposed to a warning, the less they pay attention to it and the less they comply with it. In other words, they habituate to the warnings. However, the researchers also found that simply changing the appearance of the warning reduced habituation: A design that changes often works better than a static design. So if you want your mes- sage to continue to be effective, it’s important to keep varying it.
78 Section 2 • Making Sense of the World
The stimuli we perceive often are ambiguous. It’s up to us to determine the meaning based on our past experiences, expectations, and needs. A classic experiment demonstrated the process of “seeing what you want to see”: Princeton and Dartmouth students separately viewed a movie of a partic- ularly rough football game between the two rival schools. Although everyone was exposed to the same stimulus, the degree to which students saw infractions and the blame they assigned for those they did see depended on which college they attended.^92 As these results show, we tend to project our own desires or assumptions onto products and advertisements. This inter - pretation process can backfire for marketers. Planters Life- Savers Company found this out when it introduced Planters Fresh Roast, a vacuum-packed peanuts package. The idea was to capitalize on consumers’ growing love affair with fresh-roast coffee by emphasizing the freshness of the nuts in the same way. A great idea—until irate supermarket man- agers began calling to ask who was going to pay to clean the peanut gook out of their stores’ coffee-grinding machines.^93
Interpretational Biases: The Eye of the Beholder
Our brains tend to relate incoming sensations to others already in memory, based on some fundamental organizational principles. These principles derive from Gestalt psychology , a school of thought based upon the notion that people interpret meaning from the totality of a set of stimuli rather than from any individual stimulus. The German word Gestalt roughly means whole , pattern , or configuration , and we summarize this term as “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” A piecemeal perspective that analyzes each component of the stimulus separately can’t capture the total effect. The Gestalt perspective provides several principles that relate to the way our brains organize stimuli:
- The^ closure principle^ states that people tend to perceive an incomplete picture as complete. That is, we tend to fill in the blanks based on our prior experience. This principle explains why most of us have no trouble reading a neon sign even if several of its letters are burned out. The principle of closure is also at work when we hear only part of a jingle or theme. Marketing strategies that use the closure principle encourage audience participation, which increases the chance that people will attend to the message. - The^ similarity principle^ tells us that consumers tend to group together objects that share similar physical characteristics. Green Giant relied on this principle when the company redesigned the packaging for its line of frozen vegetables. It created a “sea of green” look to unify all its different offerings. - The^ figure-ground principle^ states that one part of a stimulus will dominate (the figure ), and other parts recede into the background (the ground ). This concept is easy to understand if you think literally of a photograph with a clear and sharply focused object (the figure) in the center. The figure is dominant, and the eye goes straight to it. The parts of the configuration a person will perceive as figure or ground can vary depending on the individual consumer, as well as other factors. Similarly, marketing messages that use the figure-ground principle can make a stimulus the focal point of the message or merely the context that surrounds the focus.
We recognize patterns of stimuli, such as familiar words. In this Austrian ad, consumers will tend to see the word “kitchen” even though the letters are scrambled. Source: Demner, Merlicek & Bergmann Werbegesellschaft mbH.
Chapter 3 • Perceiving and Making Meaning 79
- Joint vs. separate^ presentation refers to whether prod- ucts are presented as a group or independently of one another.^94 Presenting products together makes it easier for consumers to create a mental image of what a consump- tion episode with the products together would look like. Especially when the jointly presented products are com- plementary (cheese and crackers; an outdoor table and an umbrella), it is easier for consumers to form a cohesive picture of what the consumption episode would look like.
Semiotics: The
Meaning of
Meaning
As we’ve seen, when we try to “make sense” of a marketing stimulus, we interpret it con- sidering our prior associations. Much of the meaning we take away influences what we make of the symbolism we perceive. After all, on the surface, many marketing images have virtually no literal connection to actual products. What does a cowboy have to do with a bit of tobacco rolled into a paper tube? How can a celebrity such as basketball player LeBron James or singer Rihanna enhance the image of a soft drink or a fast-food restaurant? The field of semiotics can help us understand how consumers interpret the meanings of symbols. This discipline studies the correspondence between signs and symbols, and their roles in how we assign meanings.^95 Semiotics is a key link to decoding consumer behavior, because consumers use products to express their social and cultural identities. From a semiotic perspective, every marketing message has three basic compo- nents: an object , a sign (or symbol), and an interpretant. The object is the product that is the focus of the message (e.g., an Apple laptop). The sign is the sensory image that represents the intended meanings of the object (e.g., the partially bitten apple). The interpretant is the meaning we derive from the sign (e.g., cool, creative). Figure 3. diagrams this relationship. Note that this meaning depends a lot upon a person’s prior knowledge and experiences. For example, not all consumers associate the Apple logo with the story of Adam and Eve and taking a bite from the apple of knowledge (at the expense of innocence). According to semiotician Charles Sanders Peirce, signs relate to objects in one of three ways: They can resemble objects, connect to them, or tie to them conventionally. An icon is a sign that resembles the product in some way (e.g., the Ford Mustang has a gallop- ing horse on the hood). An index is a sign that connects to a product because they share some property (e.g., the pine tree on some of Procter & Gamble’s Spic and Span cleanser products conveys the shared property of fresh scent). A symbol is a sign that relates to a product by either conventional or agreed-on associations (e.g., the Rock of Gibraltar that is part of Prudential’s logo provides the conventional association with stability and strength that it carries [or hopes to carry] over to the company’s approach to insurance). 96 A lot of time, thought, and money go into creating brand names and logos that clearly communicate a product’s image (even when a name like Exxon is generated by a computer!). Starbucks removed the words Starbucks Coffee as it introduced a new logo that features only the famous mermaid character. The CEO explained this change means the company is thinking “beyond coffee.”^97
Many company logos use the figure-ground principle. Do you see the arrow embedded inside the FedEx logo? Source: Harry Thomas Flower/Shutterstock.
OBJECTIVE 3- Discuss how the field of semiotics helps us understand how consumers create meaning out of symbols.
