Internal Influences - Emotion and Perception

A. Emotion

Emotion is difficult to define, and even more difficult to predict. However, they are important to marketers because consumers tend to react to marketing messages and make purchases based on feelings and emotions. Emotion can be used to create product benefits. Such as with Tide detergent and Cheerios cereal; their commercials feature families having wonderful moments together, that couldn't have happened without those products.

Emotion in advertising enhances attention, attraction, and is processed more thoroughly by the consumer and may be remembered better.

These are the elements of the relationship between emotion and understanding:

• Self control-the ability to control your emotions
• Emotional empathy-the ability to understand other people's emotions
• Positive/negative outlook-a person's outlook on life can be upbeat and optimistic or depressed and negative; most people fall somewhere in between
• Productivity-ability to use emotions to solve problems

B. Perception

Perception is the process by which people select, organize, and interpret information Perception has four major steps:

1. Exposure - When a stimulus (like a billboard) comes within range of your senses (vision)

2. Attention - Determined by the individual and the situation; Nerves pass the information onto the brain for processing

3. Interpretation - when marketing messages are assigned meaning

4. Memory

• a. Short-term—for immediate decision making
• b. Long-term—for retention

For an ad to be successful it must have the following four elements:

1. Exposure

Must physically reach the consumer

2. Attention

The consumer must attend to it

3. Interpretation

It must be properly interpreted

4. Memory

Must be stored in memory that will allow retrieval

Internal Influences - Learning

Consumer behavior is largely learned behavior. Learning is a change of behavior following an interaction between a person and their environment. A person touches a hot stove and then gets hurt, because of that interaction they learn not to touch the hot stove again. Most attitudes, values, tastes, behaviors, preferences, symbolic meanings and feelings are acquired through learning.

People buy things and then make decisions for future purchases based on if they liked the product, quality, service, and price. Social organizations help people learn "appropriate" beliefs about issues like drinking and driving, proper nutrition, etc. Companies that help their customers learn about their products and create positive feelings with their product, service, brand name, and employees-have a competitive advantage

The Learning Process:

• Exposure - the customer becomes aware of product, service or advertisement through at least one of their five senses (sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing). When a customer walks into a store, goes onto a website, drives by a billboard, reads a magazine or tries a free food sample, the learning process begins.

• Attention - the customer processes the stimulus.
• Understanding - the customer interprets the information and acts on it either by purchasing the product or service, dismissing the information, seeking more information (asking family and friends, going on the Internet) or remembering it for future information.

by Mkt Teachers