Chapter

Exposure, Attention,
and Perception

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 Learning Objectives

1. Consumers’ exposure to marketing

stimuli.
2. Characteristics of attention and
sustaining consumers’ attention in
products and marketing messages.
3. The major senses of perception and
how consumers’ sensory perception is
affected.

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 Chapter Overview: Exposure,
Attention, and Perception (Exhibit 3.1)

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 Exposure
“…reflects the process by which the
consumer comes into contact with a
stimulus.”

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 Exposure

• Marketing stimuli
• Factors influencing exposure
– Position of an ad
– Product distribution
– Shelf placement
• Selective exposure
– Zipping
– Zapping
• Measuring exposure
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 Attention
“…the process by which we devote
mental activity to a stimulus…necessary
for information to be
processed…activate our senses.”

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 Characteristics of Attention

• Selective
• Capable of being
divided
• Limited

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 Focal and Nonfocal Attention

• Preattentive processing
• Hemispheric
lateralization
• Preattentive processing,
brand name liking, and
choice

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 Hemispheric Lateralization
• Right hemisphere
– Processing music
– Grasping visual/spatial information
– Forming inferences
– Drawing conclusions
• Left hemisphere—
Processing units that can be combined,
e.g.,
– Counting
– Processing unfamiliar words
– Forming sentences

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 Hemispheric Lateralization (Exhibit 3.3)

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 Enhancing Consumer Attention by
Making Stimulus

• Personally relevant
• Pleasant
• Surprising
• Easy to process

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 Pleasant

• Attractive models
• Music
• Humor

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 Surprising

• Novelty
• Unexpectedness
• Puzzles

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 Easy to Process

• Stimuli
– Prominent
– Concrete
– Contrasting
• Limit amount of competing information

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 Concreteness and Abstractness
(Exhibit 3.5)

• Concrete words • Abstract words

– Apple – Garden – Aptitude – Hatred
– Bowl – Hammer – Betrayal – Ignorance
– Cat – Infant – Chance – Loyalty
– Cottage – Lemon – Criterion – Mercy
– Diamond – Meadow – Democracy – Necessity
– Engine – Mountain – Essence – Obedience
– Flower – Ocean – Fantasy
– Glory

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 Attention

• Defines customer segments

• Habituation

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 Perception

“…occurs when stimuli are registered by

one of our five senses: vision, hearing
taste, smell, and touch.

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 Perceiving Through Vision

• Size and shape

• Lettering
• Color
• Color dimensions
• Color and
physiological
responses/moods
• Color and liking

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 Perceiving Through Hearing

• Sonic identity
• Sound symbolism

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 Perceiving Through Taste

• Varying perceptions of what “tastes good”

• Culture backgrounds
• In-store marketing

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 In-Store Marketing Tactics (Exhibit 3.7)

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 Perceiving Through Smell

• Smell and physiological response/moods

• Product trial
• Liking
• Buying

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 Perceiving Through Touch

• Touch and physiological responses/

moods
• Liking

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 When Do We Perceive Stimuli?

• Absolute thresholds
• Differential thresholds
– Just noticeable
– Weber’s Law
• Subliminal perception and
consumer behavior

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 How Do Consumers Perceive a
Stimulus?
• Perceptual organization
• Figure and ground
• Closure
• Grouping
• Bias for the whole

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