When it comes to retail, you may not know you’re being manipulated through your very own perceptions. Consumer perception as it’s known takes your senses and influences them, both in-store and online, to make you think a certain way, or act a particular way. Think about Lush, how do they tap into your senses while your browsing in-store? Consumer perception.
Getting into detail, people detect stimuli through a variety of sensory receptors (your senses). The more organisations engage your senses, the more likely it engages the brain and products/services with emotional content. This stimulates information retention and willingness to buy.
It makes sense that you senses are the ones being targeted (notice the pun?) Here’s a rundown of the senses and what they can do:
Sight: The eye contains 70% of the body's sensory receptors. Look at the way we associate meanings to certain colours.
Smell: Smells can stir a variety of emotions such as baking bread at the entrance of stores etc. Smell is linked to the concept of memory most strongly.
Taste: We have 10,000 tastebuds organised by themes such as sweet, salt, sour, bitter etc. Taste and smell are heavily integrated.
Sound: A powerful sense to aid memory and recall, creating feelings and emotions used in store to relax, create movement, pace, nostalgia.
Sensation/Exposure: Refers to the immediate response of the sensory receptors. Exposure is the degree to which people 'notice' a stimulus with range of their sensory receptors. Exposure is selective.
Alongside what they can do, your senses can be manipulated in certain amounts or points, absolute, terminal and differential…
Absolute: The minimum amount of stimulation that can be detected on a sensory channel. For marketing to be effective it must reach this threshold.
Terminal: The point at which additional increases in stimulus intensity have no effect on sensation. Threshold levels are not universal. By increasing a sense, it gives no additions, no more effects.
Differential Thresholds: The ability of a sensory system to detect changes or differences between two stimuli. The point at which you notice. For example, chocolate bars becoming smaller, but charged at the same price, without people knowing.
Along with the perception model, there are two theories that add to consumer perception:
Common Coding Theory: Psychologist Wolfgang Prinz found that there is a link between perception and actions. When we observe something it can trigger mirror neurons that make us want to imitate what we have seen.
The Serial Position Theory: The tendency to recall earlier words is called the primary effect; the tendency to recall the later words is called the recency.
So, can you think of time where you’ve been swayed to buy something based on one of your senses? Whether it’s the smell of fresh bread or feeling the fluffiest blanket- we’ve all been there and it’s all through consumer perception.
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