PERCEPTION AND PACKAGING

Perception is the process which attaches the meaning of the things in the world around. What role has perceptual process in perception? Although perception process is all the time the same the perception is unique for each person.  This article will try to explain the main points of the perception and perceptual process to which belongs sensation, attention and interpretation.

Perception is “the sense organs Trans physical energy from the outside world, which is encoded and delivered to the brain via sensory neurons for interpretation by the perceptual system” (Stles, 2005)

“Perception is the process of sensing, selecting and interpreting consumer stimuli in the external world.” (Wilkie, 1994)

“…is how we see the world around us” (Knuk & Schiffman, 2003)

Perception is a process which comprises on people’s sensation, attention and interpretation. It contains people’s sensory experience about the world and the environmental stimuli.

Nowadays people can have everything they want to have. For the decision people make have influence a lot of things. To this belong for example: social class, culture, age, life style, occupation. “The meaning of stimuli is interpreter by the individual who is influence by their unique biases and experiences.”(Salmon, Bomossy, Hogg, Askegaard, 2010)

Below there is a diagram of Kotlers et al. which shows the “me” concept.

(Adam, 2009)

This diagram shows how many things have influence for the buyer. It starts from the cultural and goes through social, personal and psychological influences. Advertising try to show the products in the way that will go to the different aspects of people’s life and senses.

The Howard Sheth Theory, 1999 of buyer behavior diagram shows all perceptual process which people wrestle every day.  The perceptual process is an environmental thing which has influence on people’s mind and in the end of the stimuli evokes the behaviour. It shows how many things have influence on people’s decision.

  

 

Everyday a person is bombarded with information which goes into people’s mind but just a small number of stimuli people can notice and in the small amount people attend to because take all this stimuli is impossible so people just do not attend them or just ignore it; people are not able to smell the blood, for example.

The example of the senses which goes into our mind is that when people go out and they don’t know what weather is outside and it is raining and cold so people can get wet and the response for that is individuals go back and take something warm to wear and get the umbrella not o get wet. (Landau, Sabini, Jonides, 2000).

Sensation is a very important in perceptual process. Sensation is a very important in perceptual process. Sensation flow in on people’s sensory receptors to which belong: eyes, fingers, nose, ears and mouth.  From the sensation the information are sent to person’s mind and perception role start from this point. Everyone is an individual so the audience interpret the advertisements in different way.  The advertisements are done in a way to sway people to buy the product.  The example can be the Heineken “Walk in fridge” advertisement.  The senses which are contained in this advertisement are sight and smell. Although this advertisement refers to female and male some people do not like it and it does not appeal to these audiences because of different priorities.

In the perceptual princess the position of the product has a very important meaning. Usually customers categorize the products by the particular opinion and “the evaluate each alternative in terms on its relative standing on this dimensions.” (Salomon, Bomossy, Hogg, Askegaard, 2010). Perceptual map shows how people can interept the things and what the product position is. Perceptual map “...offers a unique ability to communicate the complex relationships between marketplace competitors and the criteria used by buyers in making purchase decisions and recommendations. It is powerful graphic simplicity appeals to senior management and can stimulate discussion and strategic thinking at all levels of all types of organization.” (Populus, 2009)

The perceptual map can help the organizations indentify the positioning strategy. Below there is a very basic perceptual map. It shows an example of different clothes brands.

Adapted from: http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Perceptual_mapping

It is the example of the opinion that people can have about different brands. The perceptual maps belong to individuals. Some brands for different people can be on different position. The perceptual map could help an organization launch a new brand perhaps at the medium price and quality range.

Another part of the perceptual process is attention. Attention is a stimulus which goes into people’s mind and how it focuses on people’s mind. People are classified in a variety of categories such as: age, gender, race, nationality, physical categories, education, occupation and status. People attend to stimuli by focusing on features that capture people’s attention. If normal channels of sensory awareness receive incomplete information, the mind often fills in the gaps. This is known as perceptual closure. It occurs when we receive some data that we judge important and incomplete.  When perceptual closure occurs, we allow our minds to fill in the missing data, especially if the situation or topic is familiar. (Mather, 2006).

For the attention of the customers has influence the package of the product. If the package of the product is more unusual the customer will have a bigger attention on this. An example can be the package of Pringles which are unusual, eye-catching and very successful as a brand. Another thing which can have people’s attention is unusual advertisements or text in the advertisements.

The next step which belongs to perceptual process is interpretation. Interpretation has to do with people’s current beliefs, assumptions, values and attitudes as well as customers past learning and experience. The beliefs, assumptions, values, attitudes, past learning and experiences combine to form an individual frame of reference, which is a metal filter by which perceptions are interpreted and evaluated. (SocyBerty, 2009). The perceptual interpretations and evaluation translate to personal meaning and intention, which further influence behaviour in line with the personal meaning and intention. (Ponty, 2002).

There are many factors which may affect personal perception to the world around these people. To this can belong for example: age, gender, personality, social class, level of education. All of this depends from the destination to which group of people the product should appeal. For example some advertisements will not be interesting for men and vice versa. The affects can also come from the stereotypes and inaccurate perceptions.

A perceptual process can be affected by some stages as:

Primitive categorization – in this the basic stimuli are isolated. If the woman wants to feel better she goes to the perfume shop and she’s chosen the product she likes.

Cue check – this is the analyzed characteristic which prepare for the selection. Women are choosing the perfumes which “fit” her the most, she is choosing by the smell, shape or colour of the bottle. 

Confirmation check – in here the schema is selected.

 Confirmation completion – the decision is made. The process in which customer is thinking he made a right decision and customer decided it by the colour of the bottle or interesting name. (Salomon et al, 2010). The example of the perception can be the package of Pringles. It is a very special, unique and eye-catching package. The perception process is a very clear in here. This package starts up the sensation like: sight by this unique package, taste because of the picture which have influence on people’s “taste imagination” and touch by the shape of the package which is original and everyone may want to touch it.

The second step of perception process is attention.  The package of Pringles catches the attention almost of everyone.  It is because of the all senses which the package takes from the customers. And finally interpretations. The package gives a lot of the information. For the customers everything is clear. The pictures in this are really nice and can trigger people imagination and the colours are suitable to the flavour.  The shape of the package and the crisps makes it very unusual and people want to try these special crisps.

The perception contains the meaning of the things which include people, experiences and objects that have influence on people. People interpret the world around us by the senses: smell, sight, sound, taste and touch. This wakes the customers’ attention and finally people interpret the world which is around.

Sensation, attention and interpretation those three things have the biggest influence on the decision people makes.

Bibliography:

Mather, G. (2006) Fundaments of Perception. Usa, Canada: Psychology Press

Michael R., Salmon, Gary Bomossy, Margaret K Hogg (2010) Customer behavior a European prospective. Fourth edition ed. Essex: Prentice Hall.

Bennett, P. (2006) Communicating about risk to public health: pointers to good practice.

Ponty, M. (2002) Phenomenology of Perception. New York.

SocyBerty (2009) A stages of human perceptual process [online]. Available from: http://socyberty.com/psychology/the-stages-of-human-perceptual-process/

Styles E.A. (2005) Attention, Perception and Memory. Canada: Psychology Press.

LEARNING, MEMORY AND NOSTALGIA.

LEARNING –It is the lifelong process of transforming information and experience into knowledge, skills, behaviours, and attitudes. “It is the act, process, or experience of gaining knowledge or skill. Knowledge or skill gained through schooling or study.  It is also a behavioural modification especially through experience or conditioning.”

Learning does not require a certificate or grade to prove its worth. There are very important activities such as practice, reflection, interaction with the environment and social interaction.

The ability to learn is one of the most outstanding human characteristics. Learning occurs continuously throughout a person's lifetime. To define learning, it is necessary to analyse what happens to the individual. For example, an individual's way of perceiving, thinking, feeling, and doing may change as a result of a learning experience. Thus, learning can be defined as a change in behaviour as a result of experience. This can be physical and overt, or it may involve complex intellectual or attitudinal changes which affect behaviour in more subtle ways. In spite of numerous theories and contrasting views, psychologists generally agree on many common characteristics of learning. (Olivier, Bowler, 2003)

There are a few types of learning:

1)      Perceptual learning:  the ability to learn things which have been seen before. The observer can categorise, identify and change them according to the sensory system. .

2)      Observational learning or social learning – it is learning by watching and imitation of other people. It occurs when people’s behaviour changes after viewing a different model of behaviour. It can be affected by positive or negative circumstances. People follow the observational behaviour model which is for example: popularity, good looks, money, and power. Learning by observation involves four processes: attention, retention, production and motivation.

-          Attention- the observer learns by viewing the things which happened around them.

-          Retention- the observer has to observe and remember things to do them later on.

-          Production- physical and psychical capability to act.

-          Motivation- the observers are performing the act only if they have a reason to do that.

      3)  Stimulus-response learning- ability to perform according to a certain stimulus.      

      4)  Episodic learning – remembering the event where we were witnesses.

    5) Spatial learning – learning about the relations between different stimuli

    6)  Relational learning - it’s the connection between the different areas of the association cortex. (Bandura, 1986)

There are four very important steps which people should do to achieve the best learning goal:

-          First of all you should identify the goal you want to achieve. For example: “I want to spend more time reading books which can improve my assignments.”

-          List a few circumstances in which you have previously been successful in achieving or making significant progress toward the goal.

I used to read more books in my college when I could do it with my friends. Now no one has enough time to do group sessions, but I’m trying to read as many useful sources as it is possible to improve my assignment.

-          Identify the factors that made you successful in these circumstances.

The obvious thing is that in the past I had more time to read more books but I read many books which weren’t really useful. Now I have less time but I am trying to choose the books which are more useful for me.

-          Come up with specific actions that help reproduce successful times or remove barriers.

I’m trying to get more out of the time I have. I’m trying to think more specifically.

If you are interested in how we learn, I recommend checking out Philosophy of Mind: Brains, Consciousness, and Thinking Machines, a great course from The Teaching Company, or you can also find your preferred ways of learning on:

http://www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=questionnaire.

VARK questionnaire allows students to try a variety of different approaches of learning.

To find out my preferred ways of learning I used the VARK questionnaire. This questionnaire aims to discover individual preferences and how they tend to relate to working with information. The results of the questionnaire for me are as follow:

Visual: 2

Aural: 8

Read/write: 4

Kinesthetic: 5

This results shows that I am aural learner. This means that I learn best by hearing. This is true. I remember better by attending lectures or discussion.

What do you think? Does it capture your view of learning? What is your view of learning? How do you learn best?

 MEMORY

Memory has a big connection with learning. Without remembering things, past time and experiences people wouldn’t be able to learn. And memory has built up from people’s past experience. It is all people can remember.

“The faculty of the mind by which it retains the knowledge of previous thoughts, impressions, or events.” (Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary,1913)

“The reach and costiveness with which a person can remember; the strength and trustworthiness of one's power to reach and represent or to recall the past; as, his memory was never wrong”. (Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary,1913)

Memory process:

Memory process consists of three major parts. The first one is sensory register or Sensory Information Storage (SIS). It is the time when the brain is taking a mental picture of what people’s senses are taking in. The next step is Short-Term Memory. This process gives a small amount of knowledge. “Five to nine pieces of information can be stored indefinitely if they always remain at the forefront of a person's mind.” The information which is caught in this part of the brain can be transferred to long-term memory or forgotten. The information which goes to the Long Term Memory is embedded deeply in the brain and can take quite a long time to be retrieved. (Chief Learning Officer, 2011)

Memory consists of the sensory processes. To this belongs: smell, sight, touch, taste and hearing.  Advertising and brands use these to let people’s brains remember the major thing about this brand or advertisement. It can be for example: logo, the same motif in the advertisements.

A few examples of advertisements which can be embedded deeply in people’s minds:

-          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24E8q0vhRss Pringles use a characteristic logo and unique packaging which is recognized everywhere plus these advertisements use famous footballers, which can get stuck in customers’ minds especially football fans.

-          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsbDF-BqE_o  or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4ohxdH1pE8.   

These advertisements use the most famous footballers and can go deeply into people’s memories.

The logo of the brands can get stuck in people’s minds as well. There is an example of the pictures of the brands which everyone knows and remembers: Microsoft, mtv sign, Mercedes, famous beer Carlsberg or sport wears Nike.

NOSTALGIA

Nostalgia is a thought or fact which happened in a particular time in people’s lives and the memory of which comes back to people in their life. To have nostalgic memories people can be any age. Everyone has their past and the things which are deep in their minds. People tend to have nostalgic memories because with these go their history. It can be for example a happy time, very important things or a bad situation which changed the thinking of the person. Nostalgia is “a bittersweet longing for things, persons, or situations of the past.” (Farlex,2011)

“Sentimental recollection: a mixed feeling of happiness, sadness, and longing when recalling a person, place, or event from the past, or the past in general”(Kitt,2010)

Examples of nostalgic ads are:

-          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9L8BZOcdKk

-          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg7Pq_9iauA

Two different chocolate advertisements shows very good example of nostalgia. The first one says “I did the job, now its time to relax and have some chocolate.” It is like the prize for doing something right. Parents know that their son has to have a piece of chocolate in his pocket and understand how important it is. Another advertisement shows that the taste of chocolate gives a few seconds of oblivion. In those few seconds the model can imagine the best time in her life and she knows from the past how chocolate makes her feel. In this advertisement there is appeal to the Phoenicurus fable which recalls in the audience a memory from their childhood.

Chocolate is associated with happiness. All children love chocolates and everyone has their favourite one. In older life this memory about the taste and happiness which chocolate gave them makes people happy and sometimes has an influence with direct past of life in people’s minds.

-          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcsM6azb1iw almost everyone knows SUPER MARIO BROS.  The nostalgia comes immediately and people remember how they played this game in their childhood.

-          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwMSEzP73oQ many people wanted to have Barbie or just a dolly. This advertisement can bring back the memory and lets people see how this is different from their one.

-          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbh65t80wYs&NR=1&feature=fvwp m7s.

Great example of nostalgic advertisement

-          http://www.youtube.com/user/FordUKTV?v=qrRhHyUf7cs&feature=pyv&ad=5914569334&kw=cars

Many advertising company uses nostalgic elements in their advertisements. The companies use it because those advertisements “containing visual or verbal nostalgic cues are capable of evoking nostalgic thoughts in individuals, that these thoughts will be salient and positively valence, and that the downstream effects of such ad exposures.”

You can read more about the nostalgic effects of advert on this page: http://www.allbusiness.com/marketing/advertising/233864-1.html

Bibliography:

-          Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

-          Carolyn Olivier, Rosemary Bowler ( 2003), Learning to learn. Simon and Schuster.

-          Chew Learning Officer(2011),Fosternig Retenation in Adult Learers. MediaTec Publishing.

-          Farlex(2011), The Free Dictionary [Online]. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/nostalgic

-          Kitt(2010), Yahoo Answers [Online]. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100418135151AAih3ve

-          Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) {ONLINE} http://www.dictionary.net/memories

Initial Thoughts on blogging.

A blog is an updating website with people’s points of view, very often personal ones with different types of links and commentary.  It can have different styles of writing and links but usually the gender of the writer is very clear. Blogging is one of the most popular ways of self-expressions among the internet generation.

“A blog is a type of website or part of a website. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.” (Hewitt, 2005)

Evan Williams, one of the creators of the popular blogging tool Blogger, is succinct in his definition:

“To me, the blog concept is about three things: Frequency, Brevity, and Personality.(..) This clarification has evolved over time, but I realised early on that what was significant about blogs was the format — not the content.”

Blogging is one of the best ways to communicate and give information. It’s like a very big online diary that the world can read. People can express their points of view on a particular subject. Blogs can help many people with finding  jobs because they can advertise themselves and show their personality by doing  that. There are different opinions about blogging. There are some good and some bad ones. Here are some examples of different opinions about that:  

“Blogs are a great way to monitor and even participate in the chatter about your new site.“
Mike Davidson

“Blogs are for anoraks that couldn't get published any other way.”
Janet Street-Porter

“First, I'd become an avid reader of blogs, especially music blogs, and they seemed to be where the critical-thinking action was at, to have the kind of energy that I associate with rock writing of the 1970s or Internet e-mail discussion lists a decade ago. “
Carl Wilson

Blogs can give people loads of very interesting and important information. They can also show different points of view on one subject.

“I also spend a lot of time on political blogs, and music blogs getting things for my radio show. “
Mark Edwards

Blogging may have a big influence on people’s thinking by writing about different, sometimes very important, information for different people.

“I really struggle with that feeling of helplessness. That's why I really try to get my blogs, and even myself, to point to the positive and look at all the inspiring things that are happening. “
Daryl Hannah

To create a great and successful blog the blogger has to be a great researcher, good journalist or writer. The blogger has to find and choose  the most interesting  topics and show this in a way which is relevant to their point of view. The sad truth about blogs is that nowadays there are more writers of blogs than readers.

Another point about blogging can be the information people want to show to the reader. Some of the writers want to share their lives by posting about their private lives, some want to share their trips and the rest have knowledge about a particular subject and they want to share this. All of them are very important and interesting for different groups of people. The reason for that is because there are a lot of different kinds of people’s personalities and everyone would like to read about different things.

If you want to start your own blog you have to ask yourself what kind of blog and posts you want to have in order to gain people who will spend their time on this and read it.  Although blogs are very popular around the world, you have to have an idea in order to become successful in that way of expressing yourself.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

-          Finest quotes (2011) [online}http://www.finestquotes.com/select_quote-category-Blogs-page-0.htm

-          Hugh Hewitt (2005) Blog.