Exposure, Attention, and

Perception
Consumer Behavior
Dan Bartels

Agenda
Exposure and Attention
When do consumers notice stuff, and what can you
do about it?

Perception: What you experience is not the

worldits your minds active construction of
the world
So, what are the properties of that constructive
process?
And what are their implications for marketing
strategy?

Would/did this work?

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 Whats exposure about?
Exposure increases brand awareness and
recognition (which brings your brand into the
consideration set)

Without it, there is no opportunity to process

One main goal of advertising and marketing

Measured by traffic counters, clickstream data, etc.

Challenges:
Getting noticed and cutting through the clutter

First filter on exposure: Psychophysics

Q: So, when do consumers notice stuff?
A1: They cant if it doesnt exceed a sensory
threshold
Absolute threshold: The lowest level of
stimulation a person can detect
Subliminal = below this threshold

Differential threshold: The how much change is

needed for a difference to be noticed
Relevant construct for marketers: The just noticeable
difference (JND)

Implications of Just Noticeable

Difference for Marketing
People tend not to notice relatively small
(proportional) changes
So, if you want consumers to notice a change, exceed the
JND
If you do not want consumers to notice, do not exceed
the JND

Examples
Pricing: sale price vs. price increase
Ingredient changes
Brand Names & Spokespersons: (e.g., Datsun/Nissan; Betty
Crocker)
Downsizing

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 Gradual change

Implications of Just Noticeable

Difference for Marketing
People tend not to notice relatively small
(proportional) changes
So, if you want consumers to notice a change, exceed the
JND
If you do not want consumers to notice, do not exceed
the JND

Examples
Pricing: sale price vs. price increase
Ingredient changes
Brand Names & Spokespersons: (e.g., Datsun/Nissan; Betty
Crocker)
Downsizing

Can you pick the packaging with 8

fewer ounces of ice cream?

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 Getting noticed:
Factors that affect exposure
Positioning of a marketing stimulus

Getting noticed:
Factors that affect exposure
Positioning of a marketing stimulus
Product distribution and shelf placement

Second filter: Selective exposure

Selective exposure: Consumers decide what
theyll be exposed to
Sometimes they seek out marketing stimuli, for
various reasons:
Information search (more to come) and purchase goals
Entertainment (e.g., viral videos)
But more often, they try to avoid it
Banner ads, pop-ups
What do consumers do during TV breaks?

So, what can you do about this?

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Ad placement within a medium
In a typical commercial break, which ads get
the greatest exposure?

How about in magazines?

TVs response to zipping (fast-forwarding

through ads) and zapping (changing
channel at break)?

Second filter: Selective exposure

Selective exposure: Consumers decide what
theyll be exposed to
Sometimes they seek out marketing stimuli
But more often, they try to avoid it

So, what can you do about this?

Ad repetition
Product placement
Spreading ads across different channels
Make entertaining ads, hoping theyll go viral?

A third filter:
First two:
1. Psychophysics (being unable to sense a
stimulus) and
2. Selective exposure

Theres a further filter

We may be exposed to a stimulus, but it still
wont have an effect unless this second
mechanism kicks in.

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 Attention
Attention involves
Selecting something
Focusing on it for further cognitive processing
Ignoring most other things

Attentions three inter-related properties

Its selective
Its limited (7 chunks of memory, +/- 2)
It can be divided (to varying degrees of success,
because its limited)

What Makes Consumers Pay Attention?

Characteristics of the consumer AND of the stimulus
Whether the stimulus is personally relevant
What does the consumer find involving?
Affected by current needs and motivation (so, stay tuned)
Implications for marketing strategy?

Stimulus factors (e.g., characteristics of the ad,

product, incl)
Size and intensity (brightness, volume, etc.)
Color
Pleasantness
Attractive visuals, music, also humor
Contrast
Surprise, incongruent stimulus, novelty, also humor

Color and size contrasts

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 Color

Color and Background Contrast

Pleasant visuals, with positive associations

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Do you think its possible
to overdo this?

On to Contrast

Novelty

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 Novelty

More contrast, unexpectedness, humor

Recap of exposure and attention

Filter one: Psychophysics
When (not) to exceed the just noticeable difference

Filter two: Selective exposure

Implications for in-store displays, ad placement,
product placement

Filter three: Attention

More voluntary attention: Relevance, needs,
motivations
More involuntary attention: Stimulus factors

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 Perception

After you have consumers attention, how

will they perceive what you are offering?
Perceptionhow consumers make sense of a stimulus,
decide what it means

Affected by:
Hard-wired features of the sensory organs and brain
Expectations and knowledge
People see what they expect to see
Goals, needs, and motives
People see what they want to see

Important to understand how perception works

because
What customers perceive is what affects their actions
What is perceived is not necessarily what is "true"

How does perception work?

Bottom-up: Start with raw sensations, put them
together, and build up a coherent picture
Top-down: Start with expectations, needs, and
knowledge, and use it to structure whatever
sensations you have
At the extremes
Hallucination (noun): Perception in the absence
of a stimulus.
Agnosic describing a _____: About six inches in
length A convoluted red form with a linear
green attachment.

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 Constructed reality
Bottom-up processing seems obvious to us
We feel like we perceive the world as-is
Doesnt seem like any work is required

Top-down processing is less obvious

Whats the evidence for the influence of

knowledge, needs, and expectations on
perception?

Marketing implications?
(Shiv et al. 2005)

SoBe Adrenaline Rush a drink that

claims to help increase mental acuity
After drinking, participants watched a
video for 10 min (to allow the ingredients
to have their effects)
Participants solved as many anagrams (e.g.
TUPPIL PULPIT) as they could within
30 minutes.
Regular Price: $1.89 versus
Discounted Price: $0.89

Perceptions Depend on Expectations

Price condition Average

# anagrams
solved
Regular Price
($1.89)

Discount Price
($0.89)

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Who are these people?

Expectations

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 Because expectations drive
perception
A lot of marketing is about creating consumer
experiences, which is what matters

Brand image changes perception

Not only I pay more because of the brand,

actually, the taste (that I perceive) is different

One of the major powers of brand equity

Explain
Many years ago, P&G introduced Cheer detergent
as a new product that was a highly effective
cleanser. However, consumers apparently
perceived it to be just another detergent, and it
was not particularly successful. Then P&G
changed its color, made it into a blue powder, and
continued to promote it as a highly effective
detergent. Cheer became a major national
success

Whatdothesecolorsmeantoyou?

How malleable is experience?

Seeing is believing, or is believing seeing?

Researchers made vanilla pudding look like

chocolate pudding with flavorless food coloring.
What % of participants recognized the trick?
Which was voted creamiest?
Which was voted most chocolatey?

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 The case of MIT Brew
(Lee, Frederick, and Ariely 2006)

Because expectations drive

perception
A lot of marketing is about creating consumer
experiences, which is what matters

Brand image changes perception

Not only I pay more because of the brand,

actually, the taste (that I perceive) is different

One of the major powers of brand equity

Brand equity: A case of positive prior

knowledge
Brand equity: the brand has value because of
the positive ideas and expectations associated
with it in the consumers mind
Thinking of brands name generates lots of
attributes/ideas
A valuable asset to firms
Goodwill
Brand Extensions
Co-Branding
And can influence product perceptions

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Which cookies are lighter?

The influence of brand on taste

perception in beer

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Participants asked to rate how similar the brands are to each other.

Taste Test I (Blind)

Participants asked to rate how similar the brands are to each other.

Taste Test II (Branded)

Things that I hope you remember

Consumers have to be exposed and attend to
marketing stimuli for these stimuli to have an effect.
Implications for dealing with psychophysics, selective
exposure, and (voluntary and less voluntary) attention

Perceptions are actively constructed

Depend on consumers goals, expectations, and by
marketing mix variables.

Why do we care about perceptions? Because

perceptionsnot realitydrive peoples actions
The reality that people experience (note the absence of
scare quotes) is comprised of their perceptions

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