Perception has sometimes been defined as “the consciousness of particular material things present to sense.” (James Rowland Angell). Perception is essentially the way you perceive reality, not reality itself. This is a fine line that businesses must walk. Advertisements for example must use stimuli to elicit some kind of response from the consumer and perception is defined, in this context, as the process whereby stimuli are received and interpreted by the individual and translated into a response. Bertrand Russell uses the example that “when we see an object, say a penny, we seem to be aware of its ‘real’ shape: we have the impression of something circular, not of something elliptical” (The Analysis of Mind, 1921). Lebniz’s definition of perception is that “perception is nothing other than the expression of many things in one” what we can gather from this is that lebniz is indicating we process stimuli into simple substance.
Most sources align on the notion that perception is sensory. Consumers use their physical senses to develop an opinion on objects, places, people ect. before actually experiencing said objects, places, people ect. This can be manipulated however, the idea of selective perception has been noted in advertising since the early 1960’s. Selective Perception is the process by which individuals perceive what they want to in media messages and disregard the rest. Seymor Smith notes that selective perception is “a procedure by which people let in, or screen out, advertising material they have an opportunity to see or hear. They do so because of their attitudes, beliefs, usage preferences and habits, conditioning, etc.”. This is beneficial to marketers who can plan marketing strategies around selective perception. For example if a brands status is strong in young males ages between 21-30 then they are more likely to notice advertising for said brand. A marketer can use this information to target this demographic with advertising for products that are appealing to said demographic.
References:
Bordeux, Boulic & Thalmann, 1999; Baker, 1980). – Bordeux, C., Boulic, R. & Thalmann, D. (1999). Physicallybased rendering and animation: An efficient and flexible American Journal of Business and Management 123 perception pipeline for autonomous agents. Computer Graphics Forum, 18(3).
Boundless. “Perception.” Boundless Marketing Boundless, 5 Apr. 2017. Retrieved 19 Apr. 2017 from https://www.boundless.com/marketing/textbooks/boundless-marketing-textbook/consumer-marketing-4/influences-of-personality-on-the-consumer-decision-process-41/perception-205-10606/
Henry Holt and Company, (1906) “Perception”, Chapter 6 in Psychology: An Introductory Study of the Structure and Function of Human Conscious, Third edition, revised. New York: 122-140.
Perception and consumer behaviour 