In the process of considering and making a purchase, the human brain receives multiple sensations, which impact consumer attention. To evoke consumer responses, marketers appeal to all the five senses, with greater emphasis on vision, taste and smell. The perceptual process consists of the transformation of stimuli into perception through meaning and interpretation (Solomon et al., 2012). The way in which marketing stimulates sensations largely determines the success of strategies, either noticing their deliberate nature or responding to the products driven by emotions.
The perception of customers can be defined as an approximated view of reality as a result of being exposed to various stimuli. It is significant to mention that the sensations affect each other and should be regarded as sequential factors. To attract a person’s attention, a marketing strategy should design a stimulus that would be above the absolute threshold (Solomon et al., 2012). Namely, according to Weber’s law, minimal differences between stimuli can motivate consumers to buy or reject a product (Aoki, 2016). In this connection, marketers work with designers to minimally update product appearance and keep clients loyal. For example, Danone increased the font of its brand name on yogurts, making the packaging look larger, even though the actual size was not altered. The reliance on vision is especially pronounced in marketing since it allows focusing on a mix of colors (Gidlöf et al., 2017). The use of the national flag colors encourages patriotism, while white can be referred to as purity, which is often used to promote hygiene and cleaning products.
Smell, vision and sound are extensively used in the food industry, including supermarkets, fast-food chains and other dining options. As stated by Pellegrino et al. (2015), people experience louder sounds during dinner than breakfast, and conversations may reduce the ability of consumers to distinguish between sensory differences of beverages and foods. The marketing implications of the above observations are that marketers should pay attention to the time of eating to better understand their customers. Also, the impact of background sound is discussed by Hynes and Manson (2016), who assume that music has a minimal impact on consumer choices as the noise of other shoppers and machinery prevails. In turn, Reale, and Flint (2016) point to the importance of menu label design in connection to food preferences. The mentioned authors found that colourful and marked nutritional information was more effective to identify healthy choices compared to black text. Accordingly, restaurants and cafes working towards healthy eating can pay closer attention to these findings to attract more consumers (Peng-Li et al., 2020). For example, taste-congruent soundtracks can be offered to consumers, such as salty or sweet music.
Although the role of touch is relatively underexplored in the literature, it is essential for creating a comprehensive approach to achieving consumers. The example of Nature et Découvertes shows that by providing the clients with the opportunity to touch wood, grass and synthetic materials, it is possible to obtain their attention (Solomon et al., 2012). Tactile sensations as consumers tend to associate materials with the quality of products: the way they feel fabrics largely defines overall perception. Marketers try to make packaging and product textures especially pleasant so that while touching them, clients can evaluate them as of high-quality (Knoeferle, et al., 2016). At the same time, the differentiation between product features related to touching is effective. For instance, the surface of laptops can be scabrous, flat, marked by salient elements and so on, which makes them unique.
Some people may be responsive to a small number of stimuli, which means that there is perceptual selectivity. The concept of selective exposure determines the extent to which a client reacts to particular stimuli, but all the sensations should be interpreted in combination (Solomon et al., 2012). The creation of contrast and gestalt psychology methods are applied by marketers to organize stimulus, which can be based on similarity, closure or figure-ground relationships principles.
To conclude, by examining the ways marketers appeal to consumer senses provides insights into the existing strategies and allows suggesting new ones. For example, being aware of the links between color and smell, marketers can employ a mixed approach that would integrate these stimuli. Thus, one may assume that the key contribution of understanding consumer perception is the opportunity to build and implement effective communications between companies and clients.
Reference List
Aoki, 2016, Framework for rapid analysis of consumers’ attention processes while looking at print advertisements.
Foxall, 2016, Consumers in context.
Foxall, 2017, Context and cognition in consumer psychology.
Gidlöf et al., 2017, Looking is buying.
Hynes & Manson, 2016, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services.
Knoeferle, et al., 2016, How the meaning of sounds guides consumers’ visual attention.
Myers & Sar, 2015, Journal of Marketing Communications.
Pellegrino et al., 2015, Food Quality and Preference.
Peng-Li et al. (2020). The influence of taste-congruent soundtracks on visual attention and food choice.
Reale & Flint, 2016, The impact of menu label design on visual attention, food choice and recognition.
Solomon, et al., 2012, Consumer behavior.
Thomadsen, et al., 2018, How context affects choice.