Perception :)

Hey everybody :-)

Second lesson, second blog…so what have we learned during the second session with Ruth. I searched for a good definition of Perception and I found this: Perception is the process by which organisms interpret and organize sensation to produce a meaningful experience of the world. Sensation usually refers to the immediate, relatively unprocessed result of stimulation of sensory receptors in the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, or skin. Perception, on the other hand, better describes one's ultimate experience of the world and typically involves further processing of sensory input. In practice, sensation and perception are virtually impossible to separate, because they are part of one continuous process.

This Process is divided in the three stages Sensation, Attention and Interpretation.

Well, why is Perception so important? Perception influences the buyer’s behavior and we are trying to understand the customer. For sellers it is important to see themselves through the Buyer’s eye; that is the big secret of successful work, advertising and selling.  We used the Black Box Model for understanding the process which evokes purchase decisions. The model is an interaction of different stimuli, consumer characteristics, the decision-making-process and finally the consumer responses.

The inputs affect the Black Box like stimuli. If these stimuli show a positive impact, the consumer is willing to buy. It is important that sellers are presenting their products creative and interesting, so that a positive stimulus is evoked. I found a really interesting article in the Internet, where they use an easy model to describe this relationship.

If you like to read the article, try this link ;-)  

We also talked about the buyer-behaviour model by Howard Sheth. It looks more difficult than the Black Box Model, but there a just a few more aspects included; the basic understanding is the same ;-) 

Experience and especially culture are important facts that are influencing the buyer’s perception.

I realized that during the lecture on Friday. We looked at some advertisements. Especially interesting for me was this one because the reactions of my fellow students were really surprising from my point of view. 

They said that the advertising looks fresh because of the lilies. Well…my first impression by looking at the picture was different. I thought:”Oh my god, I would never buy that, the picture looks like death!”  In Germany most people associate lilies with death because they are often used for interments. I think this is a good example for different perceptions and it is the evidence that perception is unique...

As I mentioned before it is important for sellers to attract buyer’s attention. Sellers can use bright colours, brands, slogans and so on. For a better understanding we made an activity called “Selling colour”. We were divided into small groups and every group received to papers. One paper represented our target group and on the other paper were different colours shown. Our task was to find a creative brand name and attractive names for the colours. That was a really interesting practice because we tried to see the product through buyer’s eyes.

I found a really funny video which emphasizes the importance of creativity and uniqueness of advertisements. 

So…that’s it for today...hopefully you enjoyed reading my blog and your feedback is welcome :-)

Greetings

Sabine