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1 The psychology of product recognition Jane Leighton
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The psychology of
product recognition
Jane Leighton
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Introduction
• How do consumers make purchase decisions?
• How does branding on packaging aid decision
making?
• How does copycat branding work to influence
this process?
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Contents
1. Our approach
2. The shopping environment
3. Consumer decision making
4. Copycat brands
5. The research
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1. Our approach
• Our Approach
- Use insights from science to
understand consumer
behaviour
- Use methodologies from
science to measure
consumer behaviour
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2. The environment
• Complex shopping
environment
• Overwhelmed by
choice
• Limited resources
(time, inclination,
cognition)
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3. Decision making
• Mental shortcuts - heuristics
• Cues in the environment guide shoppers’ attention and aid
decision making
- Consumers rarely conscious of these cues
- They are rarely aware of their influence
• One powerful heuristic - branding on packaging
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How does branding work?
• Draws consumers’ attention to certain products
• Enables recognition of familiar products
• Acts as a cue for retrieving stored information about those
products
- e.g. past experience, brand perceptions, brand
associations
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The science
• Processing fluency
- The ease and speed with which something is mentally
processed
- Items that come to mind quickly and easily are liked
more, perceived to be of higher value and chosen more
(e.g. Reber et al, 1998, Winkielman et al, 2000).
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Example
• Choosing which restaurant to
visit – based not only by the
content of information
recalled (e.g. price, location,
quality of food), but also by
the ease with which such
information comes to mind
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The science
• Processing fluency
- The ease with which perceptual stimuli are processed
- The ease with which information can be retrieved from
memory
• Perceptual fluency is all about familiarity and past experience
(learning).
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Fluent brands
• Brand owners often spend years and £££s increasing their
brands’ fluency, through marketing and advertising activities
• Well established brands become ‘fluent’ - easy to process,
easy to retrieve information
• New brands are harder to process
• Some new brands find a way around it...
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4. Copycat brands
• Brands which look similar to other, well established brands
may be using fluency to their advantage
• By looking like other brands, they become familiar and easier
to process than if they were an unknown brand
• They are therefore more positively evaluated and more likely
to be chosen
• In some cases, they may even be confused with the
established brand
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Measuring fluency
• Fluency = speed of recognition
• How quickly and accurately can consumers find and identify
brands?
- Speeded response, visual search task
- Measure response time and latency
• Measures automatic behaviour, not likely to be subject to
conscious control
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5. Research
• Does the presence of a copycat brand impair people’s ability
to find the established brand they’re looking for?
• Established brand plus copycat brand vs established brand
plus non copy brand:
Key Brand Copy supermarket brand Non copy supermarket brand
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Results - reaction time
• Participants were slower to identify the key brand when a
copycat brand was present, than in either of the other two
conditions.
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Results - accuracy
• Participants were more likely to make an error when a
copycat brand was present, than in either of the other two
conditions.
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Conclusions
• Our work provides some evidence for the important role of
branding on decision making
• Specifically, a copycat brand may have a negative impact on
a well established brand
• The study demonstrates for the first time that these effects
may be quantifiable using robust scientific techniques
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Category Key Brand Filler brands
Crisps Walkers Brannigans, Hula Hoops, French Fries
Butter I can’t believe it’s not butter Clover, Anchor, Benecol, Flora
Gravy Bisto Maggi, Knorr, Sainsbury’s gravy, Paxo
Biscuits Jaffa Cakes Kit Kat, Rocky, Fox’s, Hobnobs
Drinks Coca Cola Pepsi, 7up, Dr Pepper, R Whites
Category Key Brand Copycat supermarket brand Non copy supermarket brand Filler brands
Toothpaste Sensodyne Tesco Pro-tech Superdrug Sensitive Colgate, Macleans, Oral B, Arm &
Hammer
Butter I can’t believe it’s not butter Asda “You’d butter believe it” Sainsbury’s Butterlicious Clover, Anchor, Benecol, Flora
Shampoo Head & Shoulders Boots anti dandruff Waitrose Protect Pantene, VO5, Herbal Essenses,
Tresemme
Dishwasher tablets Finish Clean & Fresh Waitrose 5 in 1 Fairy, Daisy, Ecover, Planet Clean
Energy drinks Red Bull Asda Blue Charge Emerge Alibi, Monster, Mountain Dew,
Lucozade
