Decoded, 2nd Edition

3Decoding the Interface: How the Autopilot Perceives Touchpoints

 

Perception is the door through which our marketing activities enter the mind of the consumer. Whether it's a promotional offer, product, pack, website, social media, digital or TV ad, perception of the signals that make up the interface between the brand and the consumer is the very first hurdle. This is why Kahneman integrates this key interface with the outside world into his decision-making framework. This chapter shows how perception works and how we can use the core insights to optimize our marketing activities.

The power of perception

Let's have a look at the following example to illustrate how powerful perception is and how it influences our decisions.

Given that we have hundreds of thousands of hours of experience of processing faces it does not come as a big surprise that facial recognition is an automatic, implicit process. In one study, subtly (and imperceptibly) incorporating elements of an individual's face into an otherwise unfamiliar face, through digital manipulation called ‘morphing’, increased that individual's level of reported trust in, and preference for, the unfamiliar face. In a fascinating experiment by Robin Tanner from Wisconsin School of Business, digitally blending an unfamiliar face with 35% of the face of Tiger Woods resulted in a composite face that was perceived as more trustworthy than the original face before the Tiger Woods' scandal, and the effect reversed after his ...