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       WebProNews - In Marketing, Perception Is Everything
                         April 5, 2008
                   http://www.WebProNews.com

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In Marketing, Perception Is Everything
Jason Lee Miller | Staff Writer

Influence…Not so much

The mind is a deeply complex organ, at times influenced by small,
seemingly trivial things, and at others closed off to any external
stimuli. Think of it as an onion, with belief at the center and
perception at the outermost layer. Subtle stimuli can alter
perception not just more easily than they can belief, but also
can alter perception in nearly imperceptible ways, as air overtime
hardens and dries the top layer, not affecting the layer beneath.

Case in point: Associations with brand logos. No core belief is
needed to deal with company logos and associations made with them,
thus those associations are more easily influenced. A recent study
showed people subliminally exposed to Apple’s logo were more
creative with their tasks than people exposed to IBM’s.

Likewise, as posted on the Today show’s website, it’s easy to
send subtle cues to other people physically in order to get them
to associate certain positive traits in their mind. For example:
having a picture of a dog on your desk to convey loyalty or wearing
a black suit to convey authority. This is what is also referred to
as “the power of suggestion.”

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In short, perception is easily manipulated because people are
less likely to guard their perceptions than their beliefs. Changing
someone’s faith, on the other hand, would be a much more difficult
task, as belief is protected at the center of the onion.

Understanding this relationship is important when considering the
implications of other studies and how those implications apply to
marketing efforts. More than one piece of research has found, for
example, that people are more likely to be influenced by friends
and families than they are an A-list blogger. Part of that rests
with the belief that someone is trustworthy versus the perception
that someone is trustworthy. Some, though, take that information
and jump to the conclusion that blogger endorsements and celebrity
endorsements are over-credited for effectiveness.

The underlying assumption is that it all comes down to how much
trust people put into a recommendation. People these days are much
less likely to put trust in a celebrity they know is paid to say
something. That distrust could extend to bloggers as well, either
for that reason, or lack of certainty of the person’s identity
(especially in light of recent hoaxes), or a myriad other reasons
not to trust a stranger.

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So, a consumer in the market for an automobile is more likely to
trust a friend or relative, especially one with long-term brand
experience than a blogger in another state. Yeah, well, when you
put it that way, it’s not such a surprise, is it? 

Veteran communications specialist Shel Holtz doesn’t think it
should be shocking, either, and criticizes competing viewpoints
that trust is the most important metric in marketing:

“Whatever happened to the importance of building awareness?”
asks Holtz at his blog. “While the influential bloggers-the so-
called ‘A-listers’-may not have influence, they do have eyeballs.
They are A-listers, after all, because people read them. I may
have greater trust in my friend in the next cube, but where did
he hear about it? And if he heard about it from a trusted friend
or family member, they read about it from a source that gets
broad distrtibution [sic]. The information has to start somewhere.”

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A good place to start, it could be argued, is search ads
(regardless of direct ROI), especially if a marketer has strong
organic rankings with specific keywords. Exposure to the brand,
with reinforcement along the discovery process (sponsored plus
organic), sends a subtle message to viewers that will sit somewhat
idly and relaxed in the perception areas. If not there, a nice
endorsement from someone respected is also a good start, just for
those subtle associations people don’t take too seriously but do
allow to alter their behavior just slightly, either negatively or
positively.

This is why branding professionals are so careful (and sensitive
about) the person spreading their message. It’s not as much about
trust as it is about association and perception. Perception and
associations can change very quickly, which is also why OJ Simpson
doesn’t get endorsement deals anymore. 

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Seesmic Befriends (And Buys) Twitter Client Twhirl
Doug Caverly | Staff Writer

List of reasons pretty comprehensive

Twhirl’s service will remain free to users, so onlookers need not
look to their wallets.  Loic Le Meur presumably did a little
digging, however, as the Twitter client has been acquired by his
video chat company, Seesmic.

Twhirl’s price remains unknown, but on all other subjects, Le
Meur has been extremely forthcoming.  Want to know why Seesmic
purchased Twhirl, for example?  Le Meur lists a total of 20
reasons.  “[Twhirl creator] Marco Kaiser is super cool and it
is all about people” catches the PR side; “[Twhirl] is the #1
and coolest Twitter client with more than 100,000 downloads and
7% of all tweets posted per day” should convince statisticians.

The addition of video to Twhirl will remain optional, so fans
who fear change needn’t worry about that.  Also, in terms of
what else is to come, we appear to be getting a preview thanks
to a conversation on TechCrunch.  Le Meur has promised Gabe
Rivera a button that will return users to the main timeline, and
he should “eliminate delays by getting tweets via XMPP instead
of polling,” as well.

There are obviously some potential sticking points - Seesmic is
still in alpha, and Twitter itself is notorious for suffering
untimely outages.  Yet on the whole, the deal looks like it could
give quite a boost to microblogging.

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