Perception is Everything

Picture this, a sales rep shows you 2 types of chocolates. Both of these chocolates contain the same ingredients. They both have extra cocoa butter that enhances the flavour and mouthfeel, cocoa liquor that excites one's tastes, nutritious milk and delicious vanilla. The first chocolate is being held by a young guy in one of the sections in Harlem, New York. The other chocolate was being presented by a posh girl in one of the places in Manhattan, New York. Which chocolate will you choose and why? I bet you'll choose the second one!

As we all know, perception is everything. It is something we can control. Interestingly enough, I found a TEDx presentation by Rory Sutherland, current Vice Chairman of Ogilvy Group who talked about how we can change other's perception by adding value to a product and not by changing the product itself.

He explained the concept very well by using a potato as an example. In 18th century, Frederick The Great was worried about the situation of the poor people in his territory. At that time, bread was the common food of people. However, he thought of introducing potato as a substitute for bread when there's famine or when the price of bread increases. However, people thought that potato was disgusting. Dogs cannot even eat a piece of it. So what did he do? He introduced the potato as a 'royal' food eaten and consumed by royal families. At that time, people (especially peasants) eat whatever was 'royal'. People started using potatoes in their kitchen and was being eaten routinely (staple food).

So what's the moral lesson of the story? That we do not have to do drastic changes to please others. We have control to modify other people's perception towards us. We need to improve our way of communicating with others (verbally and non-verbally). 

In the industry, there are a lot of ways on how we can change the perception of customers towards a product. Here are 3 ways:

1. Increase the price: For example, a wine is considered as a high-quality product if the price is higher than the average wine. People have the tendency of perceiving the quality of a product based on the price. 
2. Take the price out of the table: Words are very powerful. Words can make or break someone or something. Let's take a look at a diamond ring as an example. Sometimes, we do not have to tell the price of a product. Instead of using 'the diamond ring is expensive', we can use 'the diamond ring is forever'. It is innate to us, as humans, that we value a product if it lasts a lifetime. 
3. Fonts matter: Isn't it more enticing to buy a product if it uses interesting font styles with attractive font colours? Little did we know, there's a psychology behind fonts. Aside from the fact that fonts influence readability, fonts invoke a certain response to readers. New York Times presented 2 satirical articles using 2 different fonts, Times New Roman and Arial. NYT asked readers how they felt when the article was written in Times New Roman. Readers were more likely to connect the words "funny" and "angry" when the article was printed in Times New Roman as compared to the article that was printed in Arial. What do you feel and think when you see the words below?

 

Do you have more ideas on how you can change other's perception towards a product?