There’s a common phrase in America, and I assume in other Western cultures, particularly those that are well accustomed to advertising: “perception is reality.†It serves to underscore the importance we often place on perception as a function of consumer behavior in brand building. Now, there is another familiar phrase that is meant to be its polar opposite – the oxymoronic “Truth in Advertising†which, in many circles, is a joke framed around an unattainable Utopia. But I believe there is at least some truth in most consumer perceptions of branding and marketing communications, ranging from advertisements to product packaging to other visual and audible stimuli, including sight, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures.
In the psychology of branding, we also consider “perceptual selectivity,†with the notion that people attend to only a small portion of the stimuli to which they are exposed, in large part due to what is commonly referred to as advertising clutter. Thousands of messages vie for our attention and engagement every day, and this potential for information overload has increased exponentially since the advent of the Internet, and even more so now that high-speed/broadband has made the likes of YouTube and full motion sight and sound available to distract us, for better or worse, with the click of a mouse.
Enter Gestalt psychology theory, and visual tools and methods by which marketers endeavor to present a minimal amount of information to represent, in the mind’s eye of the consumer, a bigger picture message. For my next entry, I’ll hunt down an ad image that demonstrates elements of this theory.
Posted by: Colin Mangham