Perception – Its power and supremacy.

Marketers must be sane enough to agree to the fact that perception is one of the most imperative (if not the most essential) subject matter of consumer behaviour. I constantly seek to be inquisitive with my fellow beings in order to comprehend their behaviour, realizing what would dictate their behaviour is necessarily their perception that has already taken shape in their minds and that is what amazes me. Perception necessarily is an individual’s selection, organisation and his interpretation of a particular stimulus he is exposed to, which eventually dictates his attitude and ultimately his actions (behaviour). Evidently, perception is the cause of a consumer behaving in a particular way and gauging such perceptions is vital that inherently enables marketers to generate stimuli that would make buyers behave in a manner which marketers predicted will happen through effective understanding of their perceptions. As mentioned earlier, I relentlessly dwell on this topic called perception and think about the probable perceptions that my folks in my family and close associates could hold of a range of stuff.

My inevitable mother: My mum has to be the easiest consumer to predict and this prediction does not require in depth analytical interviews with her or questionnaires being filled out by her. It just needs a person to have a half hour chat with her for a couple of times about her buying habits. That is enough for anyone to state that my mum is a very ‘Price sensitive’ consumer and she is so to such an extent that she makes sure she travels 10 kilometres to purchase something as simple and basic as a toothpaste to the City Market place for a price which is slightly lesser than the one available in the neighbourhood store. However, to make use of this lesser price she goes ahead and buys them in bulk, hence making our home look like a wholesale outlet with maximum bulk purchases. Tell her about a new retail store that has opened up nearby and she frowns saying ‘what have they got to offer, I can get you the same at a far lesser price than what they have to offer’ and giggles away.

My quality conscious cousin: I was chatting with two of my cousins (let’s call them cousin 1 and cousin 2) in a wedding that we attended couple of weeks ago, where cousin 1 was talking about his newly bought-used car. Cousin 2 got a little irritated and said ‘what are you boasting off for, all you buy is used stuff’ (which is apparently the truth) and told him off. Then on me being inquisitive of his purchases, he said he would never buy used stuff and always purchase a brand new product delivered from the showroom.

My Brand conscious friend: This guy, you can never get him to enter even the factory outlet of a major brand. He always prefers to consume “branded stuff”. And by branded he means; Levis, Skoda, Tommy Hilfiger, Sony, Puma, etc. Try taking him to Lal-building (an apparel bazaar in Bangalore’s city market) and he will start laughing at you.

What I intend to exemplify with the above instances is that every person has his own perception towards different earthly possessions and would never change these until there is a drastic transformation in his thinking (perception process). Every person sticks to his pre-conceived notions (perceptions) and is reluctant to change them be it - my mother who will never shop in highly-expensive stores, or my cousin who will always buy brand new products, and my friend who will even buy a branded nail-cutter if there ever was one. Marketers need to dig deep into understanding consumers’ perceptions that enrols into an attitude formation that sooner or later results in a purchase.