Perception
The perceptual process affects all consumers in some way or another since they’re human. Humans are always analyze and categorizing to make sense of things to themselves. So it doesn’t come as a surprise that consumers use their perceptual process before buying a product. That’s why companies around the world pay big bucks to find out consumers perception toward their brand and sometime build their brand around consumer’s perception as long as it’s good for business.
Branding is one the most important keys to good marketing, especially in this time in age. Branding has become more important than even the product companies sell. A strong perception of a brand makes all the difference between a successful of company and unsuccessful company. Branding is truly the heart of any companies’ marketing. Brands like Coca Cola and Nike has been around for years because of their awesome branding. But even though it’s great to have good branding, it also comes with a price. When companies decides to build on their brand they‘re also deciding to build on customer’s perception toward their brand, which is known for increase the consumer’s exceptions from the company, that usually leads to unfair situation. For example the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was caused by high demands and expectations by consumers (BrandmastersWeblog, 2010.). These consumers wanted cheaper fuel and plenty of it without noticing the risk BP would have to take to meet their expectations, which end up resulting into an environment disaster as well as new expectations by the public on how they should clean their mess and fast. The perceptions consumers have built, have now become unfair, but companies aren’t allowed to say that because of the consumer’s perception of thinking that customers are always right. This type of perception fits in with one of many distorted perception carried by consumers known as self-fulfilling prophecy that I will touch on a little later in this paper....