Let's practice!

Hi again! 

Last session we put the learned theories about perception into practice! We had to prepare some small experiments, such as a blind-taste test. The aim was to see how our senses perceive things and if there are differences between people. One group for example tested our perception of chocolate. They had three different plates with chocolate of three different brands. Our task was it then to say, which chocolate tastes best and which is the most expensive. The result was that most people preferred chocolate Nr. 2 and it was the most expensive. So, in this case we can conclude that that expensive tastes better.

Another experiment was the all-time battle of Coca-Cola & Pepsi. We got three cups of cola, and surprisingly most identified the cup with Coca-Cola. Well, I think it’s surprising, because in my opinion there is no big difference between these two; another proof for the fact, that we perceive things differently ;-).

As a sideline we learned, how important the accurate execution of the experiment is. You have to consider that the experiment is just affecting the sense/senses you want to test. One group for example tested our blind-taste of biscuits, but they had to break up the cookies, because the brand name is standing on the cookies, and that would probably have an influence on our perception, although we do not recognize it.

Anyway, Sabine and I thought we would like to create another experiment, because we just had experiments related to tasting. Therefore we designed an experiment and asked our friends for help. We gave them two different songs to hear, each was related to a specific TV-commercial for a either a woman’s or a man’s perfume. The task was now, to describe, how they perceive the music or if they think it’s more male or female. They also had to guess for which product this spot is. In the following I will describe the result we get for our “female commercial”. You can read about the other half of our experiment in Sabine’s blog.

We chose the spot for the perfume “Parisienne by Yves-Saint Laurent”. If you like, you can have a look at the spot:  

In our experiment it was crucial that the test persons just heard the music, and do not get to see the commercials. Therefore we called them on Skype and then played the video. So, they were able to hear the music, but they could not see the spot.

We asked eight people; six men and two women.  All test persons are 20-25 years old. Anyway, all said that this music must definitely be related to a male product. Five said that it is probably a commercial for a car; one person said, it seemed to be a spot for gents’ shoes and another one said it is a spot for menswear or sportswear. Our test persons described the music as fast, energetic, male, strong, dynamic and active. The majority said that they imagine a man driving a car through a rough landscape; or a man driving through a city and women are gazing after him. The car was either described as a sporty drop-top or an off-road vehicle. Other imaginations were men doing sports like hiking, or a good looking man walking through the city. We then revealed that both commercials are for perfumes, and we asked which commercial is for which gender. Again, the majority related the spot for “Parisienne” to a man’s fragrance. They were really surprised when they got to know that this music appears in a commercial for a women’s fragrance. Nonetheless, most liked the spot, especially our male testees^^

However, that’s it about our experiment. Thanks to the volunteers who helped us with our experiment, your perception is absolutely unique ;-)

Hope to see you again, and best wishes from Bucks,

Rebecca

What should I buy...?

This week’s lesson was about the buying decision process, the perceived risk model, Gestalt psychology and again about perception.

We started with a group activity. The task was to draw a word picture of a typical Over 50 year old. Almost all groups drew a man. Our group used words like “glasses”, “grandchildren” or “The Beatles”.  These words came to our mind, because we thought about people we know; how they behave, what they like or what they do.

The first theory we talked about was Kotler’s Buyer Decision Process.  This process is divided into five steps:

1.      Need recognition (I am hungry, I want to eat a chocolate bar)

2.      Information search (Which chocolate bars are there? How much do they cost? Are there any specialties?)

3.      Evaluation of alternatives (Shall I buy Snickers or Mars or Wispa or…? Which is the best/cheapest?)

4.       Purchase Decision (I will buy Wispa!)

5.      Post-purchase Behaviour (Good one, I will buy it again! / Bad one, Snickers would have been better…)

This model applies to purchase decisions for products which are expensive (a car or a house), new technologies or a new purchase for the buyer or for gifts. Otherwise you will skip step 2 & 3.  More about the buyer decision process can you read on this page.

The Buyer Behaviour is highly influenced by ones attitude towards risk. This perceived risk can be definied as: A functional or psychosocial risk a consumer feels he/she is taking when purchasing a product. Perception of risk is subjective and varies from person to person. Laurent & Kapferer (1985) defined six different kind of risks:

-          Financial (Can I afford the purchase)

-          Time (How long does it take to buy this product? How much effort is needed?)

-          Performance (Is it working?)

-          Ego (Makes the item me cool? Is it building self-esteem?)

-          Physical (Can the product hurt me?)

-          Social (What do my friends think about my purchase?)

In the following activity we should discuss the different risks for a 21-year old and a 46-year old, when they buy 1. a car, 2. a mobile phone or 3. underwear for their partner.  Buying a car for a 21-year old for example has a high financial and social risk, because he normally doesn’t have a lot of money and it’s important to him, what his friends think about it. But the financial and social risk for a 46-year old is just medium. Probably he has more money and it is less important what his friends think about the car, because it is more important to him that the car is safe and has enough space for children. This shows that people have a different attitude towards risk, depending on their expectations and wishes.

The second step in the perception process is attention. To grab the attention of the customers and potential buyers is an important aspect, when we talk about the design of advertisement. For example can you use pretty & famous people presenting your product, huge posters, repetition or contrasts. 

We then talked about the perceptual set. This can be defined as a predisposition to perceive something in relation to prior perceptual experiences. In other words, the perceptual set is an internal rule book for everyone that helps us to interpret things we perceive. 

Another point we discussed in class was Gestalt psychology. One of the founders, Max Wertheimer, said about this theory: “There are wholes, the behaviour of which is not determined by that of their individual elements, but where the part-processes are themselves determined by the intrinsic nature of the whole. It is the hope of Gestalt theory to determine the nature of such wholes.”  It is based on the four following rules:

1.      Figure & Ground (The main object is in the foreground, the background does not get closer attention)

2.      Grouping (We group items together which have similar characteristics)

3.      Closure (We see incomplete pictures, e.g. the mind fills the gaps in an incomplete picture)

4.      Stimulus Ambiguity (We see a form or an item, but need the context to interpret it)

In the following video you can see some pictures as examples for Gestalt psychology:

Here you can find out more about Gestalt psychology, its founders and the Gestalt laws. 

The last thing we talked about was perceptual maps. A perceptual maps shows two dimensions (for example high/low price and High/low quality) and you can see where on this map your product is and also the perception of other products in a particular market. These maps show how the consumers see a brand regarding its quality or other dimensions. Moreover, it can help a seller to develop a marketing strategy.

Anyway, that’s it for today. I hope you learned something and I hope you will also read the next posts;-)

Best wishes from Bucks

Rebecca 

It's all about perception...

Hello and welcome back!

Another week is gone and we learned more about the big mystery named buyer. The last lesson was about perception. We defined perception as a "sort of assumption" and "something you believe to be true". In an on-line dictionary I found following definition: Psychology. a single unified awareness derived from sensory processes while a stimulus is present. To put it in other words: Perception is our personal impression and interpretation of the world that surrounds us. But it is not only how we see things, but also how we react to these. The perception process is divided into three steps: Sensation, Attention & Interpretation.

But why are we talking about perception? Perception is one of the psychological characteristics that are influencing the buyer and his/her behavior. We compared the buyer with a black box, because it is complicated and difficult to understand. This black box is influenced by different stimuli (or inputs), like price, product, perception, culture, age, lifestyle and many more. The buyer/black box is transferring these into an output, e.g. he buys a product or not, or he decides to buy it maybe later.

A second model is the buyer-behaviour model by Howard Sheth. It looks very confusing, but basically it is just an extension of the black-box-model and it includes more details.

We experience our world through our various senses, e.g. seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, tasting. But how we experience and react to things is very different. Let's try an example; what do you see on the following picture? 

At the first glance some see a young girl, others see an old woman. And there are lots of others examples. Here can you try other examples.

So, one thing is that perception is unique to every person. Another aspect is that we never receive all the information we get. There are sounds, which the human ear simply cannot hear. But there are also so many different things in our environment and we cannot pay attention to everything. As an example, try this one;-) 

Perception is a very important factor for the design of advertisements, products or packages. It is vital to get the attention of the customer, for example with bright colors or simple black/white commercials. But also the name or the music (for example in a TV commercial) is important. In the lesson we had the task to sell colors. We got a sheet with different colors and a mash up, which represented our target group (In our group we had the "middle-class families, with teenagers). The task now was to think of attractive names for the colors and a special brandname. Our group had a color called "provence" (lilac). It was referring to the French countryside, because there grows a lot of lavender, which has the same color. We had to imagine, what our customers might like, and what kind of colours they want. So, now we know that there is a difference between "yellow" and "Egyptian sun", but also that names or colors have a different impact on different people. 

Anyway, that's it about perception for today. If you want to get more information about perception, try this page. 

I hope you found it interesting and enjoyed reading this. Your feedback is always welcome! 

Best Wishes from Bucks,

Rebecca

The first time...

Hi everybody!

Wow...this is a bit exciting, I'm blogging for the first time. So...how to start...
Well, first let's define what this blog is all about (as far as I know it yet^^)
It should deal with customers, with businesses and, of course, with theories. However, I hope it will be work as well as fun;-) This blog shall be a possibility for me to present the information I got during the lectures and to search for other information like articles, videos, photos or tables.
This blog will content information about what I learned and also some information about me:-)
Anyway, I hope you will enjoy reading it and you're welcome to give me some feedback!

Best wishes from Bucks,
Rebecca

PS: English is not my first language, so please ignore my spelling or grammatical errors, thanks for that:-)