Painting Perception

Perception... something someone believes to be true. Anything can be perceived, from images of things to what someone or something looks like. Perception can be infuenced by many things that the object portays. Or, being put more formally, " Perception is the process by which organisms interpret and organise sensations to produce a meaningful experience of the world" Peter Lindsay and Donald Norman 1977.

Perception is a powerful thing. It can affect how we see things in shops, people and items around the place. Anything can be perceived differently as everyone has different tastes and see's things differently to everyone else.

Kotler can up with buying characteristic's which is a general explanation of how and why people perceive things the way they do.

This shows peoples reasoning behind buying certain items, the closer to the buyer, the bigger impact that has on their decision. So if something is culturally acceptable, but the person's perception of the product is stronger then the person is more likely to buy something they perceive to be better for them.

In our lecture, we had to produce names for paint samples for a chosen target market. My group got given children under 8. Not so easy as it sounds. Getting into the heads of children was hard enough, but then we realised that we had to appeal to their parents too, which made it even harder. We had to appeal to two target groups now, even though the range of names we came up with were pretty impressive! This activity showed that the perception of something as simple as paint can mean a lot as a name is one of the first things someone notices about paint, or anything.


We were also showed a variety of adverts, all of which appealed to one or two of the five senses we have; hear, see, feel, smell, or taste. We were showed that just by taking away the music of an advert, can make you have a totally different perception of what the advert is all about.

Advertisers need to get our attention if they are going to sell their products. They do this obviously through advertising their product to the public. However, to successfully market it they need to appeal to the 5 senses of the person. This is the only way marketers can egt through to people. Adverts such as this Marks and Spencer's advert appeals to our taste sense.

This makes us want the food and by making it look so good, they are showing the way the food could be. This sort of adverts particularly works well if the viewer is hungry as it gives them the urge for that food, making them more likely to go and buy it.

Magazine adverts also work in this way. These sorts of advertisements don't only appeal to the sight sense, by strategically placing products in the picture such as food or a product that looks like smell, they are appealing to more then one sense.

This advert appeals to the smell sense as it shows the freshness of the scent. The environment works well, and the people show the meaning of the perfume.