Perception and the Decision Making Process...

In week 3 the topic was Perception and The Decision Making Process. In groups we were asked to draw a word picture of an over 50 year old. We had to write words which we felt related to a typical person 50+. Our group choose to portray a man who was in his late 50's. Here is what we came up with...


• 50+years old
• Male
• Receding hair line
• Shops in Tesco
• Saloon car
• Watches Top Gear
• Has a family
• Drinks Whiskey
• Enjoys going to the pub
• Traditional
• Has a roast every Sunday
• Reads broadsheet newspapers

Buyer Decision Process

Need recognition

Information search

Evaluation of alternatives

Purchase decision

Post purchase behaviour

Kotler’s buyer decision process varies by the amount of involvement. The Perceived Risk Model suggests that buyer behaviour depends on an individual’s perception on the risk in buying a product. One way of measuring involvement is with the use of FTPEPS.
FTPEPS

Finance - What is the cost of product?
Time - How much time is spent choosing product?
Performance - How long will the product last?
Ego - How do I feel about myself with the product?
Physical - Can the product hurt you?
Social - What will other people think?

Using the FTPEPS you can consider the likely level of involvement of buying and product, from bigger items such as a house or a car to smaller items such as food or clothes.

Perception Sensation Attention Interpretation

It is said that people daily sense 2 million adverts, but only pay attention to 150 of which only a small amount are effective to an individual.

Defining Perception...

There are many definitions of perception, here are just a few,

Perception noun (Belief) - A belief or opinion, often held by many people and based on how things seem. Cambridge dictionary (2009).

Perception - The process by which stimuli are selected, organized or interpreted. Soloman (2006).

Perception - Process by which people translate sensory impressions into a coherent and unified view of the world around them. Though necessarily based on incomplete and unverified (or unreliable) information, perception is 'the reality' and guides human behavior in general. Business dictionary (2009).

Perception is how we see the world around us, we all perceive things things differently and this fact effects buyer behavior. This week with Ruth we discussed senses and how advertisers play on our senses to attract us to adverts on TV, radio and in newspapers or magazines. Its amazing how different images can play on your different senses. Below are some examples of adverts which use our senses to attract us to pay closer attention.

Taste


Touch


The following advert for the new Samsung LED TV is attracting consumers using sight. They use very colourful images and a voice over which explains what the advertisement is for.



The perfect advert would appeal to all our senses. The more senses an advert appeals to the more likely we are to be drawn into it and remember the ad. The following link shows an article from the Telegraph that discusses this.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/5884340/Adverts-work-best-when-appealing-to-all-senses.html

Perception...

Today was my first lecture in Understanding the Customer with Ruth. This morning we have been discussing first impressions. We all have a perception of people and it usually takes only 17 seconds to create your first impression of somebody.
Ruth introduced us to two people this morning and we had to write down what we though their interests were, what their personalities were like just from what they looked like. Some of our guesses were quite accurate but others were harder to define. Girl A was wearing red and other bright colours so we all naturally assumed she was more confident than girl B who was wearing neutral colours. We also though that both girl A and girl B were from another country and narrowed where they were both from down to an east European country, we later found out that they were from Poland. I found this quite interesting as even when you do not hear somebody speak and listen to their accent people can still tell what part of the world they are from.
Although we did get some aspects of who girl A and girl B were we also got some wrong. We thought from there fashionable clothing they would be into shopping but both girls said they were not interested in fashion at all. We also said they neither girl was religious and girl B was.

A good example of first impressions being wrong is on Britain's got Talent. When Susan Boyle first hit our screens there was a mass sigh of 'oh no not another stupid act' but how wrong were we? People judged her on the way she looked, dressed and spoke but she had an amazing singing voice and has fast become a huge hit both here and in America and the following You Tube clip has received 40,710,651 views and counting.



It just goes to show first impressions do count but they are not always correct.