Perception is Reality

Perception is reality
By Paul Herbig

Perception is reality. That is one of the most basic rules I teach my students. What does that mean? It matters little how the world is; it matters mostly how you view the world. To you, the world is how you see it, how you perceive it. Not as it actually is. A marketer can bellow until he is blue in the face that his facts and figures prove his product has higher quality and is a better product than another company’s and yet they still will buy the other company’s. Sony’s Betamax was by all views a better product for storing and reproducing video signals yet the VHS system won out and became the predominant form today. It is what people believe that matters, not what others may say or do. Once a belief becomes established, it often takes considerable evidence and testimony for it to change.

A great example of perception is reality comes from TV. In one MASH episode (a similar example could be written using an All in the Family episode depicting an incident from Archie’s and Meathead’s perspectives), Major Frank Burns has assumed command of the 4077th MASH unit. After a few days, a revolt occurs with Hawkeye and Trapper John taking over command. The episode takes place in the courtroom where Burns, having filed court-martial charges against Hawkeye for mutiny testifies and provides his view (i.e., perception) of the events that led up to the mutiny. In it, Frank was worshipped by the nurses and doctors and patients and looked up to as the next Dr. Livingston, almost next to God, in his adoration by his troops. Next up was Hawkeye who described the incident entirely differently and from his own vantage point, painted by his own perceptions. In this story, Frank Burns, having made the entire camp angry at his petty commands (one example: he made entire camp pack up and move across the road only to do the same and re-cross the road the next day: after all “The M in MASH does stand for Mobile,” as Burns recounted). In Frank’s version, Drs Pierce and McIntyre openly revolt against his adoring comrades and forcefully sedate him and take over the camp. In Hawkeye’s version, a swinging door knocks Frank unconscious to the applause of joyous nurses and doctors. To provide balance, a third, more neutral viewpoint is presented whereupon both parties are made to be extreme in their outlook. The point here is not that either man was lying. Both Frank Burns and Hawkeye Pierce actually BELIEVED what they perceived was the truth and even indicated that in a courtroom under oath. It is just that they perceived the same facts from different sets of experiences and came to totally different assumptions which they then incorporated into their version of “the truth.”

Perception is subjective and selective. People often assume others are seeing the same situation as they see it. If the others respond differently, then we presume it is because of error or bad intentions on the part of others rather than different perceptions of the same set of facts. It is even worse when one wanders outside one’s own cultural bounds. Perceptions are often learned as part of the enculturation process. A consumer from one culture may perceive an event one way because of their cultural upbringing while another consumer from a different culture may see it another way and yet a third consumer from yet another different from either culture may not even notice the event at all. Yet it was the same event.

This is the dilemma marketers are faced with. People have different perceptions that they, rightly or wrongly, believe are the truth. It is what they perceive that matters, not what the truth is or should be. Marketers must first eliminate from their mindset any notion of absolute truth and replace it with recognition of the perception phenomena. They must then query the consumers to find out how the consumers are viewing the company or the product. It is this perception, not the marketer’s own view, that they have of the product. The marketer must then make the decision to work on changing the mindset of the consumer to what he believes the product should be viewed (by judicious use of advertising and promotion to reposition the product) or to adapt the product to the reality of what it is perceived to be by the consumers. He cannot fight their perceptions because it is a battle he will more-than-likely lose.

Remember it is not how you think it is or should be, but how the customer perceives it to be that makes the difference. See it from their viewpoint and you will prosper.