2 Chapter Objectives Perception 1 2 3 4 5 6 W R I G When you finish this chapter you will understand: H T Why is perception a three-stage process that translates raw stimuli into meaning? , Why is the design of a product today a key driver of its success or failure? S H Why is it that products and commercial messages often appeal to our senses, but we won’t be E influenced by most of them? R Ra controversial—but largely ineffective—way to talk to consumers? Why is subliminal advertising Y Why do we interpret the stimuli to which we do pay attention according to learned patterns and expectations? 2 7 Why does the field of semiotics help us to understand how marketers use symbols to create 9 meaning? 3 B U ISBN 1-256-36592-0 #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. T he European vacation has been W R Lisbon is no exception. Still, after 2 weeks of eating his way through some of I the Continent’s finest pastry shops and restauG rants, Gary’s getting a bit of a craving for his H family’s favorite snack—a good old American T box of Oreos and an ice-cold carton of milk. Unbeknownst to his wife, Janeen, he had stashed away , some cookies “just in case”—this was the time to break them out. wonderful, and this stop in Now, all he needs is the milk. On an impulse, Gary decides to surprise Janeen with a midafter- Sthe nearest grosa. When he noon treat. He sneaks out of the hotel room while she’s napping and finds heads to the small refrigerated section, though, he’s puzzled—no milk here. H Undaunted, Gary asks the clerk, “Leite, por favor?” The clerk quickly smiles and points to a rack inEthe middle of the store piled with little white square boxes. No, that can’t be right—Gary resolves to work on his Portuguese. He re- R R Finally, he investigates and sure enough he sees the boxes with labels saying they contain someYdrink milk out of a little box thing called ultra heat treated (UHT) milk. Nasty! Who in the world would peats the question, and again he gets the same answer. that’s been sitting on a warm shelf for who knows how long? Gary dejectedly returns to the hotel, his 2 7 9 3 B U ISBN 1-256-36592-0 snack time fantasies crumbling like so many stale cookies. 55 #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. 56 SECTION 2 Consumers as Individuals 1 Sensory Systems OBJECTIVE Gary would be surprised to learn that many people in the world drink milk out of a box every day. UHT is pasteurized milk that has been heated until the bacteria that cause it to spoil are destroyed, and it can last for 5 to 6 months without refrigeration if its aseptic container is unopened. The milk tastes slightly sweeter than fresh milk but otherwise it’s basically the same stuff. Shelf-stable milk is particularly popular in Europe, where refrigerator space in homes is smaller and stores tend to carry less inventory than in the United States. Seven out of ten Europeans drink it routinely. Manufacturers continue to try to crack the U.S. market as well, though analysts are dubious about their prospects. To begin with, W milk consumption in the United States is declining steadily as teenagers choose soft drinks instead. Indeed, the Milk Industry R Foundation pumped $44 million into an advertising campaign to promote milk drinking (“Got Milk?”).I But it’s even harder to entice Americans to drink milk out of a box. In focus G groups, U.S. consumers say they have trouble believing the milk is not spoiled or H consider the square, quart-sized boxes more suitable unsafe. In addition, they for dry food. Many schools T and fast-food chains already buy UHT milk because of its’ long shelf life.1 Still, although Americans may not think twice about drink, ing a McFlurry from McDonald’s made with shelf-stable milk, it’s going to be a long, uphill battle to change their perceptions about the proper partner for a bagful of Oreos. S Whether it’s the taste of Oreos, the sight of an Obsession perfume ad, or the sound of the music group H OutKast, we live in a world overflowing with sensations. Wherever we turn, we are bombarded by a symphony of colors, sounds, and E odors. Some of the “notes” in this symphony occur naturally, such as the loud R of the evening sky, or the heady smell of a rose bush. barking of a dog, the shades Others come from people: R The person who plops down next to you in class might sport tinted blonde hair, bright pink pants, and enough nasty perfume to make Y your eyes water. Marketers certainly contribute to this commotion. Consumers are never far from advertisements, product packages, radio and television commercials, and bill2 our attention. Sometimes we go out of our way to experiboards—all clamoring for ence “unusual” sensations, 7 whether they are thrills from bungee jumping; playing virtual reality games; or going to theme parks such as Universal Studios, which of9 fers “Fear Factor Live” attractions that ask vacationers to swallow gross things or perform stomach-churning3stunts.2 Reality shows like Survivor attract people who want to test the limits of their B sensations. On a popular Peruvian TV show called Laura en America, contestants show just what people U are capable of experiencing (with the right incentive): For $20, two women stripped to their underwear and had buckets of slime and toads poured over their bodies. For the same amount, three men raced to gobble down bowls of large tree grubs from the Amazon jungle. For $30, a woman licked the armpits of a sweaty bodybuilder who had not bathed for 2 days.3 And you thought college fraternity stunts were out there? Game-show contestants or not, each of us copes with the bombardment of sensations by paying attention to some stimuli and tuning out others. The messages to which we do choose to pay attention often wind up differing from what the sponsors intended, as we each put our personal “spin” on things by adopting meanings consistent with our own unique experiences, biases, and desires. This chapter focuses on the process of perception, in which the consumer absorbs sensations and then uses these to interpret the surrounding world. Why is perception a three-stage process that translates raw stimuli into meaning? ISBN 1-256-36592-0 #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. CHAPTER 2 Perception Sensation refers to the immediate response of our sensory receptors (eyes, ears, nose, mouth, fingers) to basic stimuli such as light, color, sound, odor, and texture. Perception is the process by which people select, organize, and interpret these sensations. The study of perception, then, focuses on what we add to these raw sensations in order to give them meaning. Gary’s encounter with milk in a box illustrates the perceptual process. He has learned to equate the cold temperature of refrigerated milk with freshness, so he experienced a negative physical reaction when confronted with a product that contradicted his expectations. Gary’s evaluation was affected by factors such as the design of the package, the brand name, and even the section in the grocery store in which the milk was displayed. These expectations are largely affected by a consumer’s cultural background. Europeans do not necessarily have the same perceptions of milk as Americans, and as a result their reactions to the product differ quite a bit from those of Americans. W Like computers, we undergo stages of information processing in which we input and store stimuli. Unlike computers, though, we doRnot passively process whatever information happens to be present. In the firstIplace, we notice only a very small number of the stimuli in our environment. Of those we do notice we G the stimuli that do attend to an even smaller number. And we might not process enter consciousness objectively. Each individual interprets H the meaning of a stimulus to be consistent with his or her own unique biases, needs, and experiT attention, and interences. As Figure 2.1 shows, these three stages of exposure, pretation make up the process of perception. Before considering each of these , stages, let’s step back and look at the sensory systems that provide sensations to us in the first place. S of channels. We may We receive external stimuli, or sensory inputs, on a number see a billboard, hear a jingle, feel the softness of a cashmere sweater, taste a new flaH vor of ice cream, or smell a leather jacket. The inputs our five senses detect are the raw data that begin the perceptual process. For example, E sensory data emanating from the external environment (e.g., hearing a tune on theRradio) can generate internal sensory experiences when the song triggers a young man’s memory of his first R the feel of her hair on dance and brings to mind the smell of his date’s perfume or his cheek. Y The unique sensory quality of a product helps it to stand out from the competition, especially if the brand creates a unique association with the sensation. The Owens-Corning Fiberglass Corporation was the first company 2 to trademark a color when it used bright pink for its insulation material; it adopted the Pink Panther as 7 its spokescharacter. Harley-Davidson actually tried to trademark the distinctive 9 an important part of sound a “hog” makes when it revs up.4 These responses are hedonic consumption: multisensory, fantasy, and emotional 3 aspects of consumers’ interactions with products.5 B U Figure 2.1 AN OVERVIEW OF THE PERCEPTUAL PROCESS ISBN 1-256-36592-0 SENSORY STIMULI SENSORY RECEPTORS Sights Eyes Sounds Ears Smells Nose Taste Mouth Textures Skin Exposure Attention Interpretation #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. 57 58 SECTION 2 Consumers as Individuals 2 Hedonic Consumption and the Design Economy OBJECTIVE In recent years, the sensory experiences we receive from products and services play an even bigger role when we choose among competing options. As manufacturing costs go down and the amount of “stuff” that people accumulate goes up, consumers increasingly want to buy things that will give them hedonic value in addition to simply doing what they’re designed to do. A Dilbert comic strip poked fun at this trend when it featured a product designer who declared: “Quality is yesterday’s news. Today we focus on the emotional impact of the product.” Fun aside, the new focus on emotional experience is consistent with psychological research that finds that people prefer additional experiences to additional possessions as their incomes rise.6 W In this environment, form is function. Two young entrepreneurs named Adam R Lowry and Eric Ryan discovered that basic truth when they quit their day jobs to develop a line of house-cleaning products they called Method. Cleaning products— I what a yawn, right? Gyears companies such as Procter & Gamble have plodded But, think again: For along, peddling boring boxes H of soap powder to generations of housewives who suffered in silence, scrubbing and buffing, yearning for the daily respite of martini time. T Lowry and Ryan gambled that they could offer an alternative—cleaners in exotic , lavender, and ylang-ylang that come in aesthetically scents such as cucumber, pleasing bottles. The bet paid off. Within 2 years, the partners were cleaning up, taking in more than $2 million in revenue. Shortly thereafter, they hit it big when Target S products in its stores.7 contracted to sell Method There’s a method toH Target’s madness. Design is no longer the province of uppercrust sophisticates who never got close enough to a cleaning product to be revolted by it. The red-hot store E chain has helped to make designers such as Karim Rashid, Michael Graves, Philippe R Starck, Todd Oldham, and Isaac Mizrahi household names. Mass-market consumers thirst for great design, and they reward those comR with their enthusiastic patronage and loyalty. From razor panies that give it to them blades such as the Gillette Y Sensor to the Apple iPhone and even to the lowly trash can, design is substance. Why is the design of a product today a key driver of its success or failure? Sensory Marketing: Harnessing Perception 2 for Competitive Advantage 7 Vision Philips makes its electronics products thinner and more colorful to impart a more youthful feel to the technology. Its audio products used to be all silver, but now each component comes in four vibrant colors such as electric green.9 Marketers rely heavily on visual elements in advertising, store design, and packaging. They #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN 1-256-36592-0 When guests at Omni luxury hotels visit the hotel chain’s Web site to reserve a room, 9 chimes playing. The signature scent of lemongrass and they hear the sound of soft green tea hits them as they 3 enter the lobby. In their rooms, they will find eucalyptus bath salts and Sensation Bars; minibars stocked with items such as mojito-flavored B Zen gardens. In a joint promotion with Starbucks, guests jelly beans and miniature find small scented stickers U on the front pages of their free copies of USA Today; a blackberry aroma suggests they start their day at the hotel with a cup of Starbucks coffee “paired with a fresh muffin.”8 Welcome to the new era of sensory marketing, where companies pay extra attention to the impact of sensations on our product experiences. From hotels to carmakers to brewers, they recognize that our senses help us to decide which products appeal to us—and which ones stand out from a host of similar offerings in the marketplace. In this section, we’ll take a closer look at how some smart marketers use our sensory systems to create a competitive advantage. CHAPTER 2 Perception 59 CB AS I SEE IT Professor Aradhna Krishna, University of Michigan W hat is sensory marketing, what makes it important, and why is it so fascinating? I define it as “marketing that engages the consumers’ senses and affects their behavior.” The sensory characteristics of products such as the touch, smell, taste, sound, and look of products have a large impact on consumer behavior. These sensory inputs affect how we feel, how we think, what we remember, what we like, and even how we choose and use products. Specifically, by emphasizing the sensory characteristics of products and services, or even creating new sensations entirely, we can greatly enhance consumers’ attitudes, perceptions, and satisfaction. This concept of sensory marketing has received great attention from many top companies. Advertising within the food industry alone provides some illustrative examples as companies try to incorporate more senses than just taste into their product experiences. A new brand of chewing gum that produces a seemingly one-dimensional sensory experience (taste) is named “5” for all five senses, and the tagline again incorporates this approach (“stimulate your senses”). Other examples include ads for Magnum 5 Senses Ice Cream and Denny’s breakfast (“. . .taste it with all five senses. . .”). Other products that provide a single sensory experience also try to stimulate the other senses. Axe Dark Temptation deodorant spray W is advertised with an irresistible chocolate man that appeals to all theRgirls (“Become as irresistible as chocolate”). Even I electronic products want to stimulate G like our senses with names BlackBerry, Chocolate, H and Touch. With this increasing attention to T products and sensory marketing, businesses need,to act quickly to establish a sensory signature. Managers need to ask themselves— ”Is there something S about my brand that leaves a sensory impression in people’s mind?” H What sensory characteristic of their E product sticks with consumers, helping them to R in a positively remember the product unique way? Do they R emphasize a sensory experience with the product, Y or have they constructed a new one entirely? Do they own a sensory experience and thus establish a 2 A terrific example sensory signature? of a company with 7a definitive sensory signature, and consequently one of the 9 by consultants in most commonly cited this area is Singapore Airlines. The ISBN 1-256-36592-0 3 B communicate meanings on the visual channel through a product’s color, size, and U airline focuses on creating a distinct visual signature, but perhaps more interesting and memorable is its signature aroma, Floridian Waters. This fragrance was developed specifically for use by Singapore Airlines, and is infused into their hot towels, dispersed throughout the planes, and even worn by flight attendants. The smell is not only invigorating; it also remains in passengers’ minds, leading to positive responses upon future exposure to the aroma. Sensory signatures are just one aspect of sensory marketing. Managers need to look at their offerings and ask themselves whether they can emphasize any sensory aspect of the product to make the product more appealing or create a new sensation completely. Examples of the latter are Dippin’ Dots, where the company’s Web site claims that “After overcoming the sight of their ice cream beads “pouring” into a cup there’s the look of amazement that ice cream can be “tingly and almost crunchy” (their words!). When the smooth, creamy ice cream begins to melt in their mouth . . . a fan is born!” or the new fish spas that are opening all over the world where tiny fish bite the dead skin off customers’ feet and offer a different type of pedicure. There’s more than one path to a distinctive sensory experience! styling. Colors may even influence our emotions more directly. Evidence suggests that some colors (particularly red) create feelings 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.”10 Advertisements of products presented against a backdrop of blue are better liked than when shown against a red background, and cross-cultural research indicates a consistent preference for blue whether people live in Canada or Hong Kong.11 People who complete tasks when the words or images appear on red backgrounds perform better when they have to remember details, while they excel at tasks that require an imaginative response when these are displayed on blue backgrounds. 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 #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. 60 SECTION 2 Consumers as Individuals This Finnish ad emphasizes the sensual reasons to visit the city of Helsinki. Source: Used with permission of The City of Helsinki Information office. W R I G H T , S H E R R Y 2 7 9 3 B U #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN 1-256-36592-0 than those who wear blue. In one study, interior designers created bars decorated primarily in red, yellow, or blue and people were invited 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. But, partygoers in the blue room stayed longer.12 Maybe the moral is: Get your prof to give you multiple choice exams on red paper, essays on blue paper, celebrate afterward in a red room, and then recuperate from the party in a blue room. Some reactions to color come from learned associations. In Western countries, black is the color of mourning, whereas in some Eastern countries, notably Japan, white plays this role. In addition, we associate the color black with power. Teams in both the National Football League and the National Hockey League who wear black uniforms are among the most aggressive; they consistently rank near the top of their leagues in penalties during the season.13 CHAPTER 2 Perception 61 In Western culture the color black is often associated with sophistication while white connotes innocence. Source: Used with permission of the San Francisco Ballet. W R I G H T , S H E R R Y ISBN 1-256-36592-0 2 7 9 3 B U Other reactions are a result of biological and cultural differences. Women are drawn toward brighter tones and they are more sensitive to subtle shadings and patterns. Some scientists attribute this to biology because females see color better than males do and men are 16 times more likely to be color blind. Age also influences our responsiveness to color. As we get older, our eyes mature and our vision takes on a yellow cast. Colors look duller to older people, so they prefer white and other bright tones. This helps to explain why mature consumers are much more likely to choose a white car—Lexus, which sells heavily in this market, makes 60 percent of its vehicles in white. The trend toward brighter and more complex colors also reflects the increasingly multicultural makeup of the United States. For example, Hispanics tend to prefer brighter colors as a reflection of the intense lighting conditions in Latin America; strong colors keep their character in strong #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. 62 SECTION 2 Consumers as Individuals sunlight.14 That’s why Procter & Gamble uses brighter colors in makeup it sells in Latin countries.15 Scientists and philosophers talked about the meanings of colors since the time of Socrates in the fifth century B.C., but it took Sir Isaac Newton in the early seventeenth century to shine light through a prism and reveal the color spectrum. Even then, Newton’s observations weren’t totally scientific; he identified seven major colors to be consistent with the number of planets known at that time, as well as the seven notes of the diatonic scale. We now know that perceptions of a color depend on both its physical wavelength and how the mind responds to that stimulus.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.16 However, our culture and even our language affect the colors we see. For example, theWelsh language has no words that correspond to green, blue, gray, or brown W in English, but it uses other colors that English speakers don’t (including one that covers part of green, part of R gray, and the whole of our blue). Hungarian has two words for what we call red; Navajo Ihas a single word for blue and green, but two words for black.17 Because colors elicit such strong emotional reactions, obviously the choice of a G in package design. These choices used to be made casucolor palette is a key issue ally. For example, Campbell’s H Soup made its familiar can in red and white because a company executive liked the football uniforms at Cornell University! T choices are a serious business. These decisions help to Today, however, color “color” our expectations , of what’s inside the package. When it launched a white cheese as a “sister product” to an existing blue “Castello” cheese, a Danish company introduced it in a red package under the name of Castello Bianco. They chose this S visibility on store shelves. Although taste tests were very color to provide maximum positive, sales were disappointing. A subsequent analysis of consumer interpretaH tions showed that the red packaging and the name gave the consumers wrong assoE type and its degree of sweetness. Danish consumers had ciations with the product trouble associating theR color red with the white cheese. Also, the name “Bianco” connoted a sweetness that was incompatible with the actual taste of the product. R it in a white package and named it “White Castello.” The company relaunched Almost immediately, sales Y more than doubled.18 Some color combinations come to be so strongly associated with a corporation that they become known as the company’s trade dress, and the company may even be granted exclusive use 2of these colors. For example, Eastman Kodak has successfully protected its trade dress of yellow, black, and red in court. As a rule, however, 7 judges grant trade dress protection only when consumers might be confused about what they buy because 9 of similar coloration of a competitor’s packages.19 Of course, fashion trends 3 strongly influence our color preferences so it’s no surprise that we tend to encounter a “hot” color on clothing and in home designs in one B replaces the next season (as when the fashionistas proseason that something else claim: “Brown is the newUblack!”). 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), lists these colors as among its favorites for Spring 2010: Amparo Blue, Violet, Coral Fusion, and Pink Champagne. 20 Dollars and Scents #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN 1-256-36592-0 We’ve all heard of “the Axe Effect” after we’ve been bombarded with commercials that show women chasing men who use Unilever’s personal-care brand. Can it possibly be for real? A British researcher reported that women rated men as more attractive when they used Lynx deodorant (Axe’s British counterpart) than when they reacted to men who used a “placebo” deodorant with no fragrance. Before you run out to the store, guys, keep in mind that the women didn’t actually meet the men face-to-face; they watched 15-second videos the men made describing themselves. The men in the videos were instructed not to bathe for 48 hours, and those who used the unfra- CHAPTER 2 Perception 63 Something fishy? This Indonesian ad for Harpist socks that suppress odor claims: “It would never happen with Harpist.” Source: Courtesy of Gray Worldwide, Indonesia. ISBN 1-256-36592-0 W R I G H T , granced deodorant to hide their “scent” rated themselves lower in self-confidence S “Deodorant is supthan did the Lynx users. A Unilever consumer scientist explained, posed to make you feel good about yourself and give you confidence in the mating H game, which is what Axe says.” Important note: The Axe effect only worked for women who watched the videos with no sound—those who actually E heard the men talk didn’t show a preference, which supports the idea that self-confidence R translated into body language that in turn translated into attractiveness. As the researcher joked, “One way R very quiet.”21 you could look at it is that the Axe Effect works as long as you’re Odors stir emotions or create a calming feeling. They Y invoke memories or relieve stress. 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 to2 try different alternatives within each product category.22 Many consumers control the odors in their envi7 ronments and this growing interest has spawned a lot of new products since Glade 9 Today, younger people marketed the first air freshener to suburban families in 1956. are at the forefront of scented air as they take advantage of 3 plug-ins, fragrance fans, diffusers, and potpourri. B Some of our responses to scents result from early associations that call up good or bad feelings, and that explains why businesses explore connections among smell, U 24 memory, and mood. Researchers for Folgers found that for many people the smell of coffee summons up childhood memories of their mothers cooking breakfast, so the aroma reminds them of home. The company turned this insight into a commercial in which a young man in an army uniform arrives home early one morning. He goes to the kitchen, opens a Folgers’ package, and the aroma wafts upstairs. His mother opens her eyes, smiles, and exclaims, “He’s home!”25 Speaking of coffee, Starbucks recently reverted to its old policy that requires baristas to grind a batch of coffee beans each time they brew a new pot instead of just once each morning. The idea is to reclaim lost customers by intensifying the smell of the beans when they enter the store. As the chain grew and adopted more efficient techniques that automated the process, the chain’s founder reversed course. He declared that a switch to preground coffee had taken the “romance and theatre” out of a trip to Starbucks: “We achieved fresh-roasted bagged coffee, but at what cost? The loss of aroma—perhaps the most powerful nonverbal signal we had in our stores.”26 ECONsumer Behavior In a tight economy consumers want more bang for their buck—and this desire translates to “proof” that the products they buy actually do what they’re supposed to do. In the scented products market, this means that fragrances get stronger. In 2008, twice as many new cleaning products had a fragrance (93 percent) compared to four years earlier. Procter & Gamble reports that “fragrance megatrends” surface every decade or so. Past trends include cucumber melon (1980s), rain (1990s), and more recently linen. Now manufacturers focus on scents that aren’t as delicate or even pleasant—Clorox bleach for example retains its original bleach scent even when it offers fragrances like fresh meadow. As the brand’s director of research and development explained, “We tried covering it up, and it didn’t work—consumers still want the bleach smell, just lighter.”23 #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. 64 SECTION 2 Consumers as Individuals Marketing Pitfall The California Milk Processor Board (the “Got Milk?” people) had to remove cookie-scented advertisements at five San Francisco bus stops after several groups complained about the smell. The idea was to get passersby thinking about cookies, which would then prompt them to fantasize about dunking them in a cold glass of milk. Unfortunately, not everyone got the message; the campaign managed to offend antifragrance, anti-allergy, and anti-obesity groups simultaneously. Moo.32 We process fragrance cues in the limbic system, the most primitive part of the brain and the place where we experience immediate emotions. One study even found that the scent of fresh cinnamon buns induced sexual arousal in a sample of male students!27 In another study, women sniffed T-shirts that men had worn for 2 days (wonder how much they paid them to do that?) and reported which they preferred. The women were most attracted to the odor of men who are genetically similar to themselves, though not too similar. The researchers claimed the findings were evidence that we are “wired” to select compatible mates, but not those so similar as to cause inbreeding problems.28 As scientists continue to discover the powerful effects of smell on behavior, marketers come up with ingenious ways to exploit these connections. Ad companies spend about $80 million per year on scent marketing; the Scent Marketing Institute estimates that number will reach more that $500 million by 2016.29 This form of sensory marketing takes interesting turns as manufacturers find new ways to W put scents into products, including men’s suits, lingerie, detergents, and aircraft R smelly strategies: cabins. Here are a few recent • • • • • Marketing Pitfall The A&E television network adapted a technology that some museums, libraries, and other quiet environments use to promote its Paranormal State TV series. A billboard transmitted an “audio spotlight” from a rooftop speaker. If you walk by this ad, only you will hear the message because the sound is actually beamed inside your brain. So, if you think you’re hearing voices—maybe you are.34 I One hundred gas stations in California are testing technology that wafts a coffee Ga bid to tempt its pay-and-go customers into the store for aroma at the pump in a cup to go. H Kraft Foods sponsored a special holiday issue of People magazine. Five of its ads T to rub a spot to experience the smell of an advertised in the issue allow readers product, such as Chips , Ahoy and Philadelphia Cream Cheese. Mars used scent technology to spread the aroma of chocolate around its M&M’s World retail outlets, and it put Pedigree dog-food-scented stickers in front of supermarkets and pet S stores. To launch its $2.99 Deals in several office buildings, Kentucky Fried Chicken H (KFC) strategically placed a plate of chicken, a side item and a biscuit in mail E carts that pass out interoffice mail. A spokesperson notes that “Mailroom staffers were all fed first so that they would have the strength to deal with the employees R clamoring for the KFC.” Perhaps the next time you get a letter that’s still soggy R why.30 with gravy you’ll know For a limited time, Burger Y King sold Flame, a body spray with “the scent of seduction” and a “hint of flame broiled meat.”31 Sound 2 #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN 1-256-36592-0 We’re bombarded with the sound of voices and music (some good, some painful) all 7 the time—but now advertisers can be more selective about just who hears what they have to say. As people 9 age, many develop aging ear ; they lose the ability to hear higher-frequency sounds. 3 And some teens have figured out on their own that their parents don’t have the same range of hearing that they do (probably as a result of B metal music before the kids came along). Some teens years of listening to heavy download a special ringUtone off the Internet to alert them to incoming text messages when they sit in class—their ancient teachers can’t hear these sounds. Ironically, this tone is a spin-off of technology that was originally meant to repel teenagers. A Welsh security company developed what it called the “Mosquito” to help shopkeepers disperse young people loitering in front of their stores while it didn’t affect adult customers.33 In this case aging ear comes in handy; grownups couldn’t hear the high, whining buzz that sent kids running. Many aspects of sound (at least the ones we can hear) affect people’s feelings and behaviors. Stores and restaurants often play certain kinds of music to create a certain mood. Now, even the airlines are looking to audible stimuli to help them board planes more efficiently. When Delta started to play contemporary, upbeat music during the boarding process, flight attendants reported that this seemed to encourage passengers to take their seats faster. Now, Delta deliberately chooses a different song line up each month to help “herd the cattle”—and then switches to lulling melodies to help passengers relax before takeoff.35 CHAPTER 2 Touch One recent study demonstrated the potential power of touch; the researchers found that participants who simply touched an item (an inexpensive coffee mug) for 30 seconds or less created a greater level of attachment to the product; this connection in turn boosted what they were willing to pay for it.36 The classic, contoured CocaCola bottle also attests to the power of touch. The bottle was designed approximately 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. 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 bigger 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 Britain’s W Asda grocery chain removed the wrapping from several brands of toilet tissue in its stores so that shopRsays, was soaring sales pers could feel and compare textures. The result, the retailer for its own in-store brand, resulting in a 50 percent increase I in shelf space for the line.38 Some anthropologists view touch much like a primalG language, one we learn well before writing and speech. Indeed, researchers are starting H to identify the important role the haptic (touch) sense plays in consumer behavior. Haptic senses T appear to moderate the relationship between product experience and judgment confidence—this confirms the commonsense notion that, we’re more sure about what we perceive when we can touch it (a major problem for those who sell products online).40 Individuals who score high on a “Need for Touch” (NFT) scale are especially influenced by the haptic dimension. Those with aS high need for touch respond positively to such statements as: H ISBN 1-256-36592-0 • • • Perception Marketing Opportunity When players walk past a crack in a wall in the computer game Broken Sword, they feel a draft of air in the real world. When a virtual plane flies by, a set of fans next to the monitor generates a breeze to make them feel like they’re on the runway. Philips’ AMBX system includes a wrist pad that rumbles and lamps that flash to simulate thunder and lighting. As games get more realistic, manufacturers push the sensory envelope to let players experience them with all their senses. Some companies sell subwoofer devices that attach to the base of a chair to give gamers a sonic bump in the tailbone when they get blown up in a game. The ultimate game chair has 12 vibrating built-in motors—seven in the back, five in the seat—and a pair of speakers at the top. If a grenade goes off nearby in a video game, the chair gives the player a corresponding jolt to the back. Now if they can just simulate that dayold pizza taste.39 E of products. When walking through stores, I can’t help touching all kinds Touching products can be fun. R I feel more comfortable purchasing a product after physically examining it.41 R Ironically, one recent study found that product judgments Y by individuals who do not normally possess a compulsion to touch products (low autotelics) are influenced by the “feel” of a package, while those who do have a compulsion to touch items (high 2 Researchers gave subautotelics) do not rely on this cue to infer a product’s quality. jects a glass of water in a flimsy cup that also holds a straw. Half of the subjects were 7 told to hold the cup and drink from the straw, while the other half were told to leave the cup on the desk and drink from the straw. Participants 9 who had been identified as high autotelics rated the water the same, regardless 3 of whether or not they touched the cup. However, low autotelics downgraded the water if they had the opportunity to touch the cup as they drank from it.42 How canB we explain this finding? Presumably those who like to touch have learned over time Uthat “you can’t judge a book by its cover.” The Japanese take this idea a step farther with their practice of Kinsei engineering—a philosophy that translates customers’ feelings into design elements. In one application, the designers of the Mazda Miata focused on young drivers who saw the car as an extension of their body, a sensation they call “horse and rider as one.” After extensive research they discovered that making the stick shift exactly 9.5 centimeters long conveys the optimal feeling of sportiness and control.43 Similar thinking went into the driver’s seat of the Chrysler 300C, which is designed to make you feel a bit taller. In auto-industry speak, the car has a higher H-point, which refers to the location of the seated driver’s hip. The change is prompted by the popularity of SUVs, pickups, and minivans that make drivers feel they are riding high on the highway. Ford calls its version “Command Seating” to reinforce the feeling of power it wants drivers to feel as they look down on all those little vehicles buzzing around below them.44 65 #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. 66 SECTION 2 Consumers as Individuals TABLE 2.1 Tactile-Quality Associations Perception Male Female High class Wool Silk Low class Denim Cotton Heavy Light Fine Coarse Fragrance and cosmetics containers in particular tend to speak to consumers via their tactile appeal. Most modern perfume bottles still are made of glass because when women handle an elegantly sculpted glass container they experience a sense W materials can’t provide. For example, when Nina Ricci of luxury that more modern introduced L’Air du Temps R perfume in 1948, the fragrance came in a Lalique crystal bottle with a stopper capped by a pair of crystal lovebirds. The bottle’s elegance asI not regular buyers of fragrances that this one was of high sured consumers who were quality—why would anyone G put anything less in such a nice container? In contrast, Calvin Klein’s abstract bottle for its Euphoria fragrance is more futuristic, and the H of metal—but a touch still reassures that it is in fact still container looks like it’s made made of glass. The importance of the haptic dimension explains why people still buy T most high-end fragrances in stores rather than online.45 , We also link the perceived richness or quality of the material in clothing, bedding, or upholstery to its “feel,” whether rough or smooth, flexible or inflexible. We equate a smooth fabric, such as silk, with luxury, whereas we consider denim to be considered S practical and durable. Table 2.1 summarizes some of these tactile-quality associations. Fabrics composedH of scarce materials or that require a high degree of processing to achieve their smoothness E or fineness tend to be more expensive and thus we asThis German ad reminds us that sometimes we bite off more than we can chew. Source: Client: PowWow Bar & Restaurant. Agency: Jung von Matt/Spree, Germany. R R Y 2 7 9 3 B U ISBN 1-256-36592-0 #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. CHAPTER 2 Perception 67 sume they are of a higher class. Similarly, we assume lighter, more delicate textures are feminine. Men often value a feeling of roughness, whereas women seek smoothness. Taste Our taste receptors obviously contribute to our experience of many products. Socalled “flavor houses” develop new concoctions to please the changing palates of consumers. 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, whereas Bristol-Myers Squibb and Roche use the device to devise medicines that don’t taste bitter.46 Cultural factors also determine the tastes we find desirable. A food item’s image and the values we attach to it (such as how vegans regard beef menu items, which W is not kindly) influence how we experience the actual taste.47 For example, conR sumers’ greater appreciation of different ethnic dishes contributes to increased desires for spicy foods, so the quest for the ultimate pepperI sauce continues. More than 50 stores in the United States supply fiery concoctions with names such as G in Original, Hot, and Sting and Linger, Hell in a Jar, and Religious Experience (comes 48 Wrath). Some of these sauces are so hot that stores ask customers to sign waivers H of legal liability before they buy them. Purists measure the “heat” of peppers in units called Scovilles. In 1912, Wilbur Scoville asked a five-personTpanel to see how much sugar water it would take to eliminate the hotness of a pepper. , How’s this for a hot tip: It takes 1,981 gallons of sweetened water to neutralize a teaspoon of Da’ Bomb, which claims to be the hottest sauce ever made.49 S H E R R Y This Spanish ad for a hot chili-flavored chip uses a novel visual image to communicate the ferocity of the product’s flavor. Source: Tiempo BBDO Barcelona. ISBN 1-256-36592-0 2 7 9 3 B U #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. 68 SECTION 2 Consumers as Individuals Marketing Pitfall If you watch TV with a digital video recorder (DVR), you’re 25 percent more likely to fast-forward past ads that don’t interest you immediately. And, 25 percent of DVR users don’t watch an entire commercial if it doesn’t draw them in right away—no matter how entertaining it gets by the end. Ads that start out with a captivating story are more likely to hold an audience compared to those that get to the point more slowly. This finding may cast doubt on traditional ratings of advertisements where viewers in laboratory settings are forced to watch an entire commercial—in real life they may just zap through it.51 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 very short time—if we so choose. That’s the reasoning behind Cadillac’s ads for cars that can go from zero to 60 miles an hour in less than 5 seconds. Rather than using the traditional 30 seconds to get out this message, the company ran 5-second commercials to make its point.50 However, getting a message noticed in such a short time (or even in a longer one) is no mean feat. Before we consider what else people may choose not to perceive, let’s consider what they are capable of perceiving. 3 OBJECTIVE Why is it that products and commercial messages often appeal to our senses, but we won’t be influenced by most of them? W Sensory Thresholds R If you have ever blown a dog whistle and watched your I pooch respond to a sound you cannot hear, you won’t be surprised to learn that there are some stimuli that people simG ply can’t perceive. Some of us pick up sensory information H others whose sensory channels have diminished due to that disability or age cannot. Psychophysics is the science that T focuses on how the physical environment is integrated into , personal, subjective world. our The Absolute ThresholdS When we define the lowest intensity of a stimulus that can be registered on a senH sory channel, we speak of its threshold. It sounds like a great name for a rock band, E refers to the minimum amount of stimulation that can but the absolute threshold be detected on a given sensory channel. The sound a dog whistle emits is too high R for human ears to detect, so this stimulus is beyond our auditory absolute threshR is an important consideration in designing marketing old. The absolute threshold stimuli. A highway billboard Y 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. The Differential Threshold 2 #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN 1-256-36592-0 The differential threshold refers to the ability of a sensory system to detect changes 7 stimuli. The minimum difference we can detect between or differences between two two stimuli is the j.n.d. 9 (just noticeable difference). The issue of when and if consumers will notice a difference between two stim3 uli is relevant to many marketing situations. Sometimes a marketer may want to enB a change, as when a retailer offers merchandise at a dissure that consumers notice count. In other situations, the marketer may want to downplay the fact that it has U made a change, such as when a store raises a price or a manufacturer reduces the size of a package (see the “CB as I See It” box on reference prices). A consumer’s ability to detect a difference between two stimuli is relative. A whispered conversation that might be unintelligible on a noisy street can suddenly become public and embarrassingly loud in a quiet library. It is the relative difference between the decibel level of the conversation and its surroundings, rather than the absolute loudness of the conversation itself, that determines whether the stimulus will register. In the nineteenth century, a psychophysicist named Ernst Weber found that the amount of change required for the perceiver to notice a change systematically CHAPTER 2 Perception 69 CB AS I SEE IT Professor Larry Compeau, Clarkson University ISBN 1-256-36592-0 S urveys consistently show that consumers consider price the most important factor when they buy, but marketers too often view price merely as an economic variable—that is, the amount of money the consumer must sacrifice to obtain the product. Years of recent research, however, show us that consumers regard price more than simply as the cost of a product.52 To truly understand price, we need to think of it as an information stimulus, like color, aroma, and other more traditional stimuli we interpret. How consumers respond to and use price in their perceptual processes has been the focus of recent research. This research considers price as an information cue that is perceived and interpreted (attaching meaning to it). We call this area of research behavioral pricing. One stream of behavioral pricing research looks at price as an information cue we use to judge a product.53 You’ve certainly heard the old adage “You get what you pay for,” which may or may not be true depending on the circumstances. Nonetheless, when consumers don’t have other information on which they can rely, they often use price as an indicator of quality (more on this in Chapter 9). In this sense, price is an important information source consumers use to help them decide among product options. In another stream of research, we expand the scope to consider the broader context and other information marketers often present along with the actual selling price.54 We refer to the pieces of information that surround the actual selling price as semantic cues because the consumer’s interpretation or judgment of the selling price depends on how he or she interprets this information (semantics!). When we conceptualize price as an information cue or stimulus, then we must also accept the fact that price is subject to the same W types of perceptual processes that lead to R depending on the different judgments context. A common I strategy sellers use in providing contextual G information for consumers is to present a reference price along with H the selling price. This refers to T a price against which buyers compare the actual , selling price. Marketers usually present it in price adver tisements, on price tickets, or S even on store displays. For example, how often Hadver tisement that have you seen an states a selling price E without some other “reference price” next to it R price,” “original showing the “regular price,” “compare-at R price,” or “MSLP” (manufacturer’s suggested list price)? Y an item goes on It’s pretty rare. When sale and the old price and the new price are available to ascertain the 2 information is savings, this price informative and helps 7 the consumer. A reference price communicates 9 to the buyer. But the value of the deal if a seller knows 3 that consumers rely on semantic cues to assess the deal, B the cue information the seller can alter to enhance the deal’s U attractiveness: Which is the better deal on an LCD television? • Product A: 47 inch, 1080p, high definition—regular price: $2,499; sale price: $1,499 • Product B: 47 inch, 1080p, high definition—regular price: $1,799; sale price: $1,499 Like most consumers, you probably picked product A. Why? To make your decision, you used the reference prices. Getting a $2,500 television for $1,500 is a better deal than getting an $1,800 television for $1,500—you save more, and you get a better television, right? What if the televisions are identical? If the seller of product A deliberately exaggerates the regular price of $2,499, then the information may not be as informative as it is deceptive. Using higher reference prices, sellers can get consumers to increase their perceptions of the value of the deal, when in fact the deal is not better.55 When this happens, consumers are more likely to purchase that item and less likely to shop around.56 As a result, there is the potential for harm to consumers. Important public policy implications (i.e., government rules and regulations) arise based on research on reference pricing.57 We must consider how to protect consumers from deceptive practices, such as exaggerating reference prices, and this research plays a critical role in determining if deception occurs and what can be done about it. Many state and federal laws, along with guidelines from the Better Business Bureau, have specific regulations regarding the use of reference prices to avoid harming consumers, but a litany of court cases demonstrates that the research is critical to inform these laws and regulations and their interpretation by the courts.58 Perception theory then is a critical base on which we can build a sophisticated understanding of how consumers use price. We then use this knowledge to protect consumers and enhance overall consumer welfare. #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. 70 SECTION 2 Consumers as Individuals relates to the intensity of the original stimulus. The stronger the initial stimulus, the greater a change must be for us to notice it. This relationship is known as Weber’s Law, which this equation summarizes: K = 䉭i I where K  a constant (this varies across the senses) Δi  the minimal change in intensity of the stimulus required to produce a j.n.d. I  the intensity of the stimulus where the change occurs W Law works for a product when it goes on sale. A rule of Consider how Weber’s thumb some retailers use R is that a markdown should be at least 20 percent for the reduction to make an impact on shoppers. If this is the case, a pair of socks that retails for $10 should be Iput on sale for $8 (a $2 discount) for shoppers to realize a difference. However, aG sports coat that sells for $100 would not benefit from a “mere” $2 discount—a retailer would have to mark it down to $80 to achieve the H same impact. Weber’s Law, ironically, T is a challenge to green marketers who try to reduce the sizes of packages when they produce concentrated (and more earth, friendly) versions of their products. Makers of laundry detergent brands have to convince their customers to pay the same price for about half the detergent. Also, because of pressure S from powerful retailers such as Wal-Mart that want to fit more bottles on their shelves, the size of detergent bottles is shrinking signifH Unilever, and Henkel all maintain that their new conicantly. Procter & Gamble, centrated versions willE allow people to wash the same number of loads with half the detergent. One perceptual trick they’re using to try to convince consumers of this is the redesign ofRthe bottle cap: Both P&G and Church & Dwight use a cap with a broader base and R shorter sides to persuade consumers that they need a smaller amount.59 Y Perceptual thresholds pose a challenge to brands that need to update their images without sacrificing the brand image they’ve worked years to cultivate. The trick is to make a product, logo, trademark, or package different enough so that people 2 will notice the change, yet not so different that consumers will think it’s no longer the 7 tries to change too much, it courts disaster. Mattel same product. If a marketer found this out in 1993 when 9 it gave Barbie’s boyfriend Ken a purple mesh T-shirt, a pierced ear, and the name “Earring Magic Ken.” Not a pretty picture.60 3 Here’s how a few venerable marketers deal with this problem: • • #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN 1-256-36592-0 • B Pepsi took five months U to revamp its famous logo after top executives decided the company needed to define the drink as a “cultural leader.”61 As figure 2.2 shows, The lonely Maytag repairman first appeared in national commercials in 1967. Now he’s getting a makeover to become more active and outgoing for a new generation of shoppers. Formerly known as “Ol’ Lonely,” the new spokescharacter takes the initiative to repair other things that Maytag implies ought to be as dependable as its appliances, such as office copiers and cable TV.62 Strawberry Shortcake, a popular doll and cartoon character in the 1980s, doesn’t connect with modern girls—maybe it’s the bloomers she wears. Her owner American Greetings Properties launched what the company calls a “fruit-forward” makeover. The doll now prefers fresh fruit to gumdrops, wears a dab of lipstick (but no rouge), and has abandoned her calico cat in favor of a cell phone. CHAPTER 2 Perception Figure 2.2 THE PEPSI LOGO OVER PEPSI 1898: PEPSI 1905: PEPSI 1906: PEPSI 1940: PEPSI 1950: PEPSI 1962: PEPSI 1974: PEPSI 1987: PEPSI 1998: PEPSI 1991: PEPSI 2006: PEPSI 2003: TIME W R I G H T , S H E R R Y 2 7 9 3 B U ISBN 1-256-36592-0 PEPSI 2009: #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. 71 Maytag Corp. puts its lonely repairman to work fixing other companies’ brands of home appliances. Source: Erik S. Lesser/AP Wide World Photos. This Canadian beer ad pokes fun at subliminal advertising. Source: © 2005. Molson USA, LLC. W R I G H T , S H E R R Y 2 7 9 3 B U ISBN 1-256-36592-0 72 #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. CHAPTER 2 4 Perception Subliminal Perception Most marketers want to create messages above consumers’ thresholds so people will notice them. Ironically, a good Why is subliminal number of consumers instead believe marketers design advertising a many advertising messages so they will perceive them uncontroversial—but largely consciously, or below the threshold of recognition. Another ineffective—way to talk to word for threshold is limen (just remember “the secret of consumers? Sprite”), and we term stimuli that fall below the limen subliminal. Subliminal perception occurs when the stimulus is below the level of the consumer’s awareness. Subliminal perception is a topic that has captivated the public for more than 50 years, despite the fact that there is virtually no proof that this process has any effect on consumer behavior. A survey of American consumers found that almost two-thirds beWone-half are convinced lieve in the existence of subliminal advertising, and more than that this technique can get them to buy things they do not really R want.63 ABC rejected a Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) commercial that invited viewers to slowly replay the I ad to find a secret message, citing the network’s long-standing policy against subliminal advertising. KFC argued that the ad wasn’t subliminal at G all because the company told viewers about the message and how to find it. The network wasn’t convinced.64 OBJECTIVE H T , S H E R R Y ISBN 1-256-36592-0 2 7 9 3 B U #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. 73 74 SECTION 2 Consumers as Individuals Like this 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 subliminal persuasion has been important in shaping the public’s beliefs about advertisers’ and marketers’ abilities to manipulate consumers against their will. Subliminal Techniques Marketers supposedly send subliminal messages on both visual and aural channels. Embeds are tiny figures they insert into magazine advertising via high-speed photography or airbrushing. These hidden figures, usually of a sexual nature, supposedly exert strong but unconscious influences on innocent readers. Some limited evidence hints at the possibility that embeds can alter the moods of men when they’re exposed to sexually suggestive subliminal images, but the effect (if any) is very subtle—and W may even work in the opposite direction if this creates negative feelings among view65 ers. To date, the only real R impact of this interest in hidden messages is to sell more copies of “exposés” written by a few authors and to make some consumers (and stuI dents taking a consumer behavior class) look a bit more closely at print ads—perhaps G seeing whatever their imaginations lead them to see. The possible effectsH of messages hidden on sound recordings also fascinate many consumers. We can see one attempt to capitalize on subliminal auditory perception T market for self-help audios. CDs and tapes, which typically techniques in the growing feature the sounds of crashing waves or other natural sounds, supposedly contain sub, liminal messages to help listeners stop smoking, lose weight, gain confidence, and so on. Despite the rapid growth of this market, there is little evidence that subliminal stimuli transmitted on the auditory S channel can bring about desired changes in behavior.66 H Work? Let’s Evaluate the Evidence Does Subliminal Perception Some research by clinical Epsychologists suggests that subliminal messages can influence people under very specific conditions, though it is doubtful that these techniques would be of much use inRmost marketing contexts. For this kind of message to have a prayer of working, an advertiser has to tailor it specifically to an individual rather than R the mass messages suitable for the general public.67 The stimulus should also be as Y close to the liminal threshold as possible. Here are other discouraging factors: • • • • There are wide individual differences in threshold levels. In order for a message 2 to avoid conscious detection by consumers who have low thresholds, it would have to be so weak that it would not reach those who have high thresholds. 7 Advertisers lack control over consumers’ distance and position from a screen. In 9 a movie theater, for example, only a small portion of the audience would be in exactly the right seats 3 to be exposed to a subliminal message. The viewer must pay absolute attention to the stimulus. People who watch a telB evision program or a movie typically shift their attention periodically, and they U when the stimulus appears. might not even notice Even if the advertiser induces the desired effect, it works only at a very general level. For example, a message might increase a person’s thirst—but not necessarily for a specific drink. Because the stimulus just affects a basic drive, a marketer could find that after all the bother and expense of creating a subliminal message, demand for competitors’ products increases as well! Clearly, there are better ways to get our attention—let’s see how. 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 your#ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN 1-256-36592-0 Attention CHAPTER 2 Perception 75 self daydreaming about the upcoming weekend. 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 particular stimulus. As you know from sitting through both interesting and “less interesting” 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 are in a state of sensory overload, where they are exposed to far more information than they can process. In our society, much of this bombardment comes from commercial sources, and the competition for our attention is steadily increasing. 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. Getting the attention of young people in particular is a challenge—as your proW fessor probably knows! By one estimate, 80 percent of teens today engage in R one medium at a time multitasking, where they process information from more than as they attend to their cell phones, TVs, instant messages, and I so on.68 One study observed 400 people for a day and found that 96 percent of them were multitasking about Gstruggle to understand a third of the time they used media.69 Marketing researchers this new condition as they figure out how to reach people whoHdo many things at once. As we’ll also see in later chapters, marketers constantly search for ways to break T mixed results: through the clutter and grab people’s attention—at times with • , Networks try to engage viewers during commercial breaks when they wedge original content into the blocks of advertising time so that viewers will anticipate seeing something fun if they sit through a few ads. Fox S Broadcasting televised a series of clips about an animated character named Oleg, a New York cab driver, H who popped up in 8-second vignettes during commercial breaks in series such E Web site. In one clip, as 24. In a Greek accent, Oleg urged viewers to visit Fox’s Oleg sang about himself to the Barry Manilow tune “Copacabana.” In others, he R drove celebrities such as Tom Cruise and Rosie O’Donnell. Although Oleg generR viewers complained ated more than 100,000 Web site hits on some nights, some that he was an ethnic stereotype and others couldn’t understand what he was Y saying—so Oleg is history. But, it was a good idea in principle.70 This camera ad from Singapore reminds us that consumers tune out many stimuli that compete for their attention. Source: Courtesy of Nikon/Euro RSCG/Singapore. ISBN 1-256-36592-0 2 7 9 3 B U #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. 76 SECTION 2 Consumers as Individuals • • • The CW television network runs content wraps, which mix sponsors’ products into program snippets. Sometimes these wraps involve the cast of the shows in which the commercials appear. This is hardly a new strategy, however; so-called “cast commercials” were common in the days of I Love Lucy, The Beverly Hillbillies, and even The Flintstones. In the online world, advertisers are trying more tricks to get visitors to watch their messages. One of the most popular today is rich media—this technique uses movement to get viewers’ attention. LowerMyBills.com is notorious for its endless loops of silhouetted dancers and surprised office workers, whereas other ads spring into action when you move the cursor over them. Other rich media are online versions of familiar TV commercials that sit frozen on the Web site until you click them. Teaser ads, much like those you see on TV that give you a taste of the story but make you return later for the rest, also turn up on Web W sites.71 Of course, a sure-fireR way to grab our attention is to do something outrageous, or at least unusual, in a public place. To promote a new class at the New York Health I men and women stood outside the city’s Grand Central and Racquet Club, six Terminal flashing their G underwear at strangers. The garments featured the club’s logo and “Booty Call,” the name of the class. H Because the brain’sTcapacity to process information is limited, consumers are very selective about what , they pay attention to. The process of perceptual selection means that people attend to only a small portion of the stimuli to which they are exposed. Consumers practice a form of “psychic economy,” picking and choosing among stimuli to avoidSbeing overwhelmed. How do they choose? Both personal and stimulus factors help to decide. H E Personal Selection Factors R The actions of a Colorado judge illustrate how powerful our own tastes can be in determining what we wantRto see and hear. He requires young people convicted of violating the city’s noise Y ordinance to listen to music they don’t like—including a #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN 1-256-36592-0 heavy dose of such “favorites” as Wayne Newton, Dean Martin, and bagpipe recordings.72 What, no Jonas Brothers? Experience, which is the result of acquiring and processing stimulation 2 over time, is one factor that determines how much exposure to a particular stimulus a person accepts. Perceptual filters based on our past ex7 periences influence what we decide to process. 9 is one such factor. Consumers are more likely to be aware Perceptual vigilance of stimuli that relate to 3 their current needs. A consumer who rarely notices car ads will become very much aware of them when she or he is in the market for a new car. B A newspaper ad for a fast-food restaurant that would otherwise go unnoticed becomes significant whenUone sneaks a glance at the paper in the middle of a five o’clock class. The flip side of perceptual vigilance is perceptual defense. This means that people see what they want to see—and don’t see what they don’t want to see. If a stimulus is threatening to us in some way, we may not process it—or we may distort its meaning so that it’s more acceptable. For example, a heavy smoker may block out images of cancer-scarred lungs because these vivid reminders hit a bit too close to home. Still another factor is adaptation, the degree to which consumers continue to notice a stimulus over time. The process of adaptation occurs when consumers 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 en route to work might read a billboard message when it is first installed, but after a CHAPTER 2 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. Duration—Stimuli that require relatively lengthy exposure in order to be processed habituate because they require a long attention span. 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. W R In addition to the receiver’s mind-set, characteristics of the I stimulus itself play an important role in determining what we notice and what we ignore. Marketers need Gpackages that will have to understand these factors so they can create messages and a better chance to cut through the clutter. This idea even applies H to getting animals’ attention: A British ad agency created a TV commercial aimed at felines that used T In trials, 60 percent fish and mouse images and sounds to attract catty consumers. of cats showed some form of response to the ad, from twitching , their ears to tapping Stimulus Selection Factors Perception ECONsumer Behavior While consumers are more reluctant to pull out their wallets in tough times, marketers redouble efforts to introduce a steady stream of new products. The reason? Marketers need new reasons to reach out to their customers whose impulse is to decrease their connection to the marketplace. Cold Stone Creamy is launching numerous new ice cream products as well as coffee drinks and a line of cheesecakes. A company executive explained that while consumers are changing their buying habits, hopefully “. . . they’re still looking for that 10-minute vacation at Cold Stone.”74 the television screen.73 That’s a better track record than some “people commercials” have shown! S from others around In general, we are more likely to notice stimuli that differ them (remember Weber’s Law). A message creates contrast in several ways: • • • ISBN 1-256-36592-0 • 77 H E Size—The size of the stimulus itself in contrast to the competition helps to determine if it will command attention. Readership of a magazine ad increases in R proportion to the size of the ad.75 R Color—As we’ve seen, color is a powerful way to draw attention to a product or to give it a distinct identity. For example, Black & Decker developed a line of tools it Y called DeWalt to target the residential construction industry. B&D colored the new line yellow instead of black, which made it stand out against other “dull” tools.76 Position—Not surprisingly, we stand a better chance of2 noticing stimuli that are in places we’re more likely to look. That’s why the competition is so heated among 7 suppliers to have their products displayed in stores at eye level. In magazines, ads that are placed toward the front of the issue, preferably9on the right-hand side, also win out in the race for readers’ attention. (Hint: The 3 next time you read a magazine, notice which pages you’re more likely to spend time looking at.)77 A B study that tracked consumers’ eye movements as they scanned telephone directories also illustrates the importance of a message’s position. Consumers scanned U 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.78 Novelty—Stimuli that appear in unexpected ways or places tend to grab our attention. One solution is to put ads in 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.79 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 #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. 78 SECTION 2 Consumers as Individuals W R I G H T , An oversized ad for Air Dubai cuts through the clutter. Source: Haakson Dewing/Haakon Photographic Services. S H E R R frames a few inchesY above the ground.80 Other entrepreneurs equip billboards with tiny cameras that use software to determine that a person is standing in front of an outdoor ad. Then the program analyzes the viewer’s facial features (like cheekbone height 2 and the distance between the nose and the chin) to judge the person’s gender and age. Once the software categorizes the passerby, it 7 selects an advertisement tailored to this profile—an Hispanic teenager for 9 example sees a different message than the middle-aged Asian woman who walks behind him.813 #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN 1-256-36592-0 Indeed, one recent B study indicates that novelty in the form of interruptions actually intensifies our experiences; distraction increases our enjoyment of pleasant U stimuli as it amplifies our dislike of unpleasant stimuli. In fact, the study reported that 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 that included ads for a jeweler, a lawyer, and other businesses while the other half saw the show with all commercials deleted. Students who saw the original actually gave higher evaluations to it. The researchers found a similar pattern when they interrupted people who got a massage. On the other hand, 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 outcome 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 back to the original intensity level.82 CHAPTER 2 5 Perception 79 Interpretation OBJECTIVE Interpretation refers to the meanings we assign to sensory stimuli. Just as people differ in terms of the stimuli that they perceive, the meanings we assign to these stimuli vary as well. 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, kids ages 3 to 5 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.83 W The meaning we assign to a stimulus depends on the schema, or set of beliefs, R to which we assign it. That helps to explain why Gary was so revolted at the thought I of a stimulus evoke a of warm milk. In a process we call priming, certain properties schema. This in turn leads us to compare the stimulus to other similar ones we enG countered in the past. H marketing decisions Identifying and evoking the correct schema is crucial to many because this determines what criteria consumers will use T to evaluate the product, package, or message. Extra Strength Maalox Whip Antacid flopped even though a spray , can is a pretty effective way to deliver the product. But to consumers aerosol whips Why do we interpret the stimuli to which we do pay attention according to learned patterns and expectations? S H E R R Y Advertisers know that consumers often will relate an ad to a preexisting schema in order to make sense of it. This Singaporean ad for Toyota evokes a car schema even though the materials used in the picture are chairs and couches one might find inside a house. Source: Courtesy of Saatch & Saatchi, Singapore; Frederic Enq. ISBN 1-256-36592-0 2 7 9 3 B U #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. 80 SECTION 2 Consumers as Individuals W R I G H T , A popular British retailer called French Connection relies on the priming process to evoke a response to its advertising by using an acronym that closely resembles another word. Source: Used with permission TWBA London on behalf of French Connection. S H mean dessert toppings,Enot medication.84 However, when a college cafeteria gave menu items descriptive R labels (e.g., Red Beans with Rice versus Traditional Cajun Red Beans with Rice, Chocolate Pudding versus Satin Chocolate Pudding) so that diners R each option and were able to better categorize them, sales had more information about increased by more than 25 Y percent.85 #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN 1-256-36592-0 Even the location of a product’s image on a package influences the way our brains make sense of it. For example, due to what we have learned about the law of gravity (heavy objects sink 2 and light objects float), we assume that products that are lower down in a frame weigh more than products that appear higher in a frame. In 7 addition, objects on the right of a frame appear heavier than products that appear on the left of a frame. This9interpretation results from our intuition about levers—we know that the farther away 3 an object is from a lever’s fulcrum, the more difficult it is to raise the item. Because we read from left to right, the left naturally becomes the viB perceive objects on the right as heavier. Manufacturers sual fulcrum and thus we should bear these package U schematics in mind; they may influence our feelings about the contents in a package for better or worse—think for example about a diet food marketer who wants shoppers to regard her menu items as lighter.86 As we’ll see later in Chapter 6, products often assume a “brand personality” where we tend to assign them common human traits such as sophistication or sexiness. In other words we anthropomorphize objects when we think of them in human terms, and this thought process may encourage us to evaluate products using schemas we apply to classify other people. A recent study illustrates how this works: Subjects saw an advertisement with a picture of a car that has been modified to either make it appear as though it was either “smiling” or “frowning.” In some cases the text of the ad was written in the first person to activate a human schema, while others saw the same ad written in the third person. When the human schema was active, those who saw the “smiling” car rated it more favorably than when they saw a “frowning” car.87 CHAPTER 2 Perception 81 CB AS I LIVE IT Kristen Kimble, Western Michigan University “U ne tasse de l’eau, s’il vous plaît?” I asked the waiter in a charming French restaurant overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Translated, it means “a cup of water, please.” Being that it was 95 degrees out and we had just walked all around the city of Cannes, France, I expected an ice cold drink to cool me down. Two minutes later he sets down a glass. I bring it to my lips, anxiously awaiting the refreshing feeling of pure, cold water, and instead feel lukewarm liquid, reminiscent of bathwater, on my tongue. Reluctantly I swallow. For the first time I realize that the glass is devoid of any ice cubes. But as I soon realized, after this incident is repeated at many other French and Italian bistros, that even if you ask for “beaucoup de glaçons” which means a lot of ice chips, the water will still arrive at the table lukewarm. That is ISBN 1-256-36592-0 Stimulus Organization because the French do not choose to keep the water carafe in the fridge, and also do not find a need for their “l’eau” to be cold. But to me, it was preposterous to think that I could refresh myself without a liquid that was way above room temperature. Let’s just say that I went the rest of my trip a very thirsty W girl with a very dry mouth! RI was so taken The reason why aback by lukewarm I drinking water was because I have a schema that I apply to water. It is onlyGtasty and refreshing if it is cold. Because H of the process called priming, the properties of the T stimulus—the lukewarm temperature of the water—reminded me of , bathwater and made me want to spit it right out. In the United States, the colder the water S is, the better. It is marketed as cool and refreshing, H using images of waterfalls and glaciers to get the point across. This is E the schema I apply to water. Marketers should know thatR people have a set of beliefs about even Rthe most basic products, like water. They need to Y understand the images that they attach to products and make sure that those images reflect consumers’ schemas. The idea of having a set schema and the process of priming is a part of interpretation, the last step of the perceptual process. Interpretation is the meaning that we assign to sensory stimuli. The chapter’s description accurately describes the incident in France. My past experiences, and the set of beliefs I hold to be true, led me to the immediate physical reaction of spitting out the warm water. But I know that two different people can interpret the same stimuli very differently, because they have different schemas that they apply. Because of this, I know that when traveling abroad and trying new things, it is best to be aware of the schemas that I am attributing to stimuli. This will allow me to broaden my horizons, interpret stimuli in a new light, and just maybe be refreshed by a lukewarm glass of water. 2 One factor that determines how we will interpret a stimulus is the relationship we 7 assume it has with other events, sensations, or images in memory. When RJR 9 product) for adults, it Nabisco introduced a version of Teddy Grahams (a children’s used understated packaging colors to reinforce the idea that 3 the new product was for grown-ups. But sales were disappointing. Nabisco changed the box to bright yelBmore positive associalow to convey the idea that this was a fun snack, and buyers’ tion between a bright primary color and taste prompted adults U to start buying the 88 cookies. 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 that maintains 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. #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. 82 SECTION 2 Consumers as Individuals The Australian postal service uses a unique application of the figure-ground principle. Source: © M&C Saatchi, 2007. W R I G H T , S H E R This principle explains why most of us have no trouble reading a neon sign even R are burned out. The principle of closure is also at work if several of its letters when we hear only Y 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 principle of similarity tells us that consumers tend to group together ob2 jects that share similar physical characteristics. Green Giant relied on this prin7 ciple when the company redesigned the packaging for its line of frozen vegetables. It created a “sea9of green” look to unify all of its different offerings. The figure-ground principle states that one part of a stimulus will dominate (the 3 figure), and other parts recede into the background (the ground). This concept is easy to understand ifB one thinks literally of a photograph with a clear and sharply focused object (the figure) U 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. The Eye of the Beholder: Interpretational Biases #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN 1-256-36592-0 The stimuli we perceive are often 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 particularly rough football game between the two rival schools. Although everyone was exposed to the same stimu- CHAPTER 2 Perception lus, the degree to which students saw infractions and the blame they assigned for those they did see depended on which college they attended.89 As this experiment demonstrates, we tend to project our own desires or assumptions onto products and advertisements. This interpretation process can backfire for marketers. Planters LifeSavers 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 managers began calling to ask who was going to pay to clean the peanut gook out of their stores’ coffee-grinding machines.90 Another experiment demonstrated how our assumptions influence our experiences; in this case, the study altered beer drinkers’ taste preferences simply by telling them different stories about a specific brew’s ingredients. The researcher offered bar patrons free beer if they would participate in a taste test (guess what: very W few refused the offer). Participants tasted two beers each, one a regular draft of Budweiser or Samuel Adams and the other the same beer R with a few drops of balsamic vinegar added. Although most beer aficionados would I guess that vinegar makes the drink taste bad, in fact 60 percent of the respondents who did not know G version to the regwhich beer contained the vinegar actually preferred the doctored ular one! But when tasters knew in advance which beer hadH vinegar in it before they took a swig, only one-third preferred that version.91 T , 6 Semiotics: The Symbols Around Us S sense” of a marketAs we’ve just seen, when we try to “make ing stimulus we interpret it in light of our prior associations. H Why does the field of For this reason, much of the meaning we take away influsemiotics help us to E we perceive. After all, ences what we make of the symbolism understand how on the surface many marketing images R have virtually no litmarketers use symbols eral connection to actual products. What does a cowboy to create meaning? Rinto a paper tube? How have to do with a bit of tobacco rolled can a celebrity such as the basketball player Shaquille Y O’Neal or the singer Rihanna enhance the image of a soft drink or a fast-food restaurant? To help them understand how consumers interpret the 2 meanings of symbols, some marketers turn to semiotics—the field of study that studies the correspon7 dence between signs and symbols and their roles in how we assign meanings.92 9 use products to exSemiotics is a key link to consumer behavior because consumers press their social identities. Products carry learned meanings, 3 and we rely on marketers to help us figure out what those meanings are. As one set of researchers put it, B “Advertising serves as a kind of culture/consumption dictionary; its entries are products, and their definitions are cultural meanings.”93 U From a semiotic perspective, every marketing message has three basic components: an object, a sign (or symbol), and an interpretant. The object is the product that is the focus of the message (e.g., Marlboro cigarettes). The sign is the sensory image that represents the intended meanings of the object (e.g., the Marlboro cowboy). The interpretant is the meaning we derive from the sign (e.g., rugged, individualistic, American). Figure 2.3 diagrams this relationship. 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 galloping 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 ISBN 1-256-36592-0 OBJECTIVE #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. 83 84 SECTION 2 Consumers as Individuals Figure 2.3 SEMIOTIC RELATIONSHIPS OBJECT (Product) Marlboro Cigarettes W CowboyR Rugged American I G SIGN H (Image) T , INTERPRETANT (Meaning) Sthat relates to a product by either conventional or agreedscent). A symbol is a sign on associations (e.g., the lion in Dreyfus Fund ads provides the conventional associH ation with fearlessness and strength that it carries [or hopes to carry] over to the company’s approach toE investments).94 A lot of time, thought, R and money go into creating brand names and logos that clearly communicate a product’s image (even when a name like Exxon is generated R Xterra combines the word terrain with the letter X, by a computer!). The Nissan which many young people Y associate with extreme sports, to give the brand name a cutting-edge, off-road feel. The choice of a logo is even more difficult when the brand has to travel across cultures. For example, 2 as Chinese business becomes more global, companies refashion ancient Chinese pictograms into new corporate logos that resonate with 7 both the East and the West. Chinese pictograms really are icons because the ancient 9 depictions of the words they signify. For example, China symbols were once graphic Telecom’s logo features3two interlocking letter C’s that together form the Chinese character for China but also represent the concept of “customer” and “competition,” B the firm’s new focus. In addition, though, the symbol also resembles the horns of an ox, a hard-working animal. The software company Oracle redesigned its logo for the U Chinese market; it added three Chinese characters that signify the literal translation of the word oracle: “writing on a tortoise shell.” The expression dates back to ancient China when mystics scrawled prophecies on bones. The California firm was enthusiastic about the translation because it conveyed Oracle’s core competency—data storage.95 Hyperreality #ONSUMER"EHAVIOR"UYING (AVING AND"EING, Ninth Edition, by Michael R. Solomon. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN 1-256-36592-0 One of the hallmarks of modern advertising is that it creates a condition of hyperreality. This refers to the process of making real what is initially simulation or “hype.” Advertisers create new relationships between objects and interpretants when they invent new connections between products and benefits, such as when an ad equates Marlboro cigarettes with the American frontier spirit. In a hyperreal environment, over time it’s no longer possible to discern the true relationship between CHAPTER 2 the symbol and reality. The “artificial” associations between product symbols and the real world take on lives of their own. Here are some recent hyperreal sightings: • • • • A furniture designer launched a dining room set inspired by the TV series Dexter— the main character is a police blood splatter analyst who moonlights as a serial killer. The all-white table and chairs are festooned with big splotches of red.96 “It’s so easy even a caveman can do it.” The “yuppie” cavemen from the insurance company GEICO’s ad campaign became so popular they actually spawned a (short-lived) TV sitcom. Now, ESPN signed the characters to star in a series of vignettes to promote its SportsCenter program and fantasy football offering.97 We’ll learn later on in the book about the popular strategy of product placement, where TV shows and movies incorporate real products on sets and in plotlines. Reverse product placement is a great example of hyperreality; in these cases fictional products that appear in shows become popular in the real world. The eW commerce site LastExitToNowhere.com sells T-shirts that bear the logos of companies featured in works of fiction. These include suchR made-up companies as Tyrell (the manufacturer of genetic replicants in the movie I classic Blade Runner), Polymer Records (a music label in the cult movie This Is Spinal Tap), and the G Weyland-Yutani Corporation (it made the spaceship freighter Nostromo in the Alien movies). Another online store—80sTees.com—proclaimed Duff beer, from H The Simpsons TV show the number one fake brand. Coming in second was T98 Dunder Mifflin, the paper company on The Office series. Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans originated in the Harry Potter book series before , the product moved to actual retail shelves; the movie Forrest Gump inspired the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company restaurant chain; and Nestlé sells Wonka candy S (from the Willy Wonka movie).99 Perception Marketing Pitfall There’s no doubt that traditional newspapers are in trouble. Many are searching for new ways to attract advertisers and boost circulation in an era where a lot of people get their news from Web sites or blogs instead. The Los Angeles Times took a controversial step wh...
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