How people select, organize, and interpret sensations

ex- NYC

Immediate response of our sensory receptors

(5 senses)

the emotional impact of a consumption experience.

- designer makes a difference!

- we don't buy just for function, feel we need to aspire for top of the line

ex: BMW, iPhone

Companies pay extra attention to how thier ads will effect our emotions. 

Live vibrations in phones to create that feeling of feedback. Appeals to our senses.

- colors stimulate different senses

- part of hedonic consumption

- smell can also promote emotion

ex: alchaseltzer uses the fizz, coke has the songs that create emotion and stay relevant with decade

Sensory Threshold:

absolute threshold

minimum amount of stimulation a person can detect on a sensory channel

ex: billboards must keep text large enough to see while driving

Sensory Threshold:

Differential threshold / change blindness

ability of a sensory system to detect changes in or differences between two stimuli

people are very slow to notice change, the brain blocks out external changes b/c it's focused on the big picture

ex: pepsi logo has had many subtle changes

when companies have exclusive use of color combinations 

ex: kodak uses red back and yellow

Making products to make you feel a certain way

ex: car in which the seat makes you feel taller

Exposing consumers to messages and images below absolute threshold

- never proven to actually work

- must have 100% of people's attention

- threshold varies from person to person

- you also have to be at a certain angle and distance to see most messages

ex: grammys posted "eat popcorn" for 1/1000 of a second, false claim to increase sales

creating images to create an attitude for brand 

- limited evidence that this increases sales

ex: sexy magnum ice cream 

Attention

- sensory overload

- multitasking

- rich media

how much effort is devoted to processing a stimulus

sensory overload: being exposed to more than we can process

multitasking: process info from more than 1 medium

rich media: ads that use movement when scrolled over

- living in a metropolitan area, you see 5000 images a day 

goal driven perception. you notice more things when you have a goal. 

ex: you see more food signs when you're hungry

brain blocks out things we don't need

ex: bear in the basketball video

opposite of vigilance.

people see what they want and not what your ad wants them to focus on

ex: smokers don't see blackened lungs on boxes

if we are around something enough we'll stop noticing it

ex: smells

• sizes- xxl or xxs
• color- neons
• position- something placed at eye level
• novelty- something new/unique

still too much of one of these will make it monotomous

• nose hair trimmer ran phone lines through billboard to look like nose hair
• mr clean painted 1 sidewalk stripe brighter than the rest
• knife cut through lobster on elevator doors
• real life angry birds

giving meaning to a sensory stimuli. once you define something your brain will make the connection. 

ex: chinese symbol may have no meaning but once you define it you'll always know what it represents

"the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts"

each piece won't make sense until you put it together

object: product focus of message (ex: malboro cigs)

sign: sensory image that represents the intended meaning of message (ex: malboro cowboy)

interpretant: meaning we derive from sign (rugged, american)

products seen in shows become popular in the real world

ex: duff beer

Learning

formal vs. incidental

Permanent change in behavior caused by experience

formal- ABC's, 123's, school lectures

incidental- not meaning to be picked up, curse words

- most marketing is incidental learning

learning takes place in response to external events. 

ex: classical conditioning

learning new asscociations through repetition.

ex: Pavlov's dogs drool for meat. bell is conditioned stimulus, dog drooling with only bell is conditioned response

ex: The Office

repitition of meat and bell made the response stronger

- too many bells without steaks and the response will fade away (extinction)

after conditioning the subject responds to unconditioned stimuli that is similar

ex: keys jingling

deliberately hiding a product's brand.

ex: Levi Strauss has a line to appeal to young people so they wouldn't associate levi's with an "old" brand

UCS does not follow stimulus similar to CS. 

ex: too many bells without steaks the response fades away

playing an ad too much the people get tired of it

ex: toyota ran a bad commercial so many times people made a fb group to complain

Evaluating conditioning

transfer of emotions through association

ex: music can be associated with a product. apple and hipster music

negative example: tiger was dropped by most brands when scandel was unveiled

Marketing applications of stimulus generalization

family branding

product line extension

licensing

look-alike packaging

family branding: rely on having a trustworthy brand

product line extension: company ads related products to an established brand

licensing: companies "rent" well known names. like 911 firefighters becoming dolls

look-alike packaging: packaging creates strong associations with a particular brand

strengthens the response with rewards

ex: dogs with treats

If you don't do something, it will have a bad outcome

ex: not wearing sunscreen to the beach

ex: subway and the punch cards

delta airline miles

you get reinforced after a set number of responses, but you don't know how many responses are required.

ex: slot machines

memory- process of acquiring data and storing it for later use

ex: computer metaphor. memories are like files; sometimes they can be deleted, saved, or corrupted. 

1. external inputs 

2. encoding (info placed into memory)

3. storage (retained in memory)

4. retreival (info is found aas needed)

Encoding 

understanding the different types of meaning

Sensory: rawest form. feelings. 

Semantic: abstract meaning that goes with info. "what is it?" (cake means birthday, calories, party, etc.) 

Episodic: Biographical, personal history memory. (mom made you a cake for your birthday.)

Sensory: everything comes into memory so most is diluted. kept for only seconds.

Short-term memory: kept for minutes/hours. remembering it b/c you know you need it soon. "buckets"

Long-term memory: Permanently kept information for hours or more

Episodic memories- remember in terms of events that have happened to us. High retention

Narrative- a story can often be used to convey product information

interlinked concepts that form our memory structure.

- the more you think about it the more spreading occurs

- we retreive information through spreading activation (energy)

*amount of cognitive effort, strengths of links, number of links

- some things stick our more than others

- number may be not as specific

our brains have unlimited capacity, but it also puts a cap to balance it

Decay

Interference

Transcience

decay: memories simply fade away

interference: 1 memory disrupts another (losing your keys)

transcience: useless thoughts that fade away

Proactive

Retroactive

on test**

pro: learned in the past makes learning something now more difficult

retro: new information now so you can't remember the past

remembering one thing disrupts another memory 

ex: when asked to name perfumes you rmember more if you aren't given an example

Recognition

Recall

recognition: easier. show a tv show, then ask people to circle the ones they remember that were in the show. 

free recall: just write down all the brands you remember seeing

- if all the brands are listed, recognition is important, but most times companies aim for people to be able to just recall their brand. 

legacy: family uses for generations (pizza sauce)

gifts: tangible reminder that someone once gave it to you

happy memory product: Disney, goal is to create memories