Importance of Symbolic Stimulus in Consumer Perception

Abstract

Consumer perception plays a leading role in brand building and has a dramatic effect in shaping the consumer buying behavior. That is why businesses spend so much money in marketing themselves. Perceptions are developed due to exposure to varied stimuli and past experiences about a product. This also true for food products like snacks, were sense organs play’s a dominant role in deciding the purchase. In today’s competitive world an average consumer has myriads of choices for product selection. This study concentrates on the importance of Symbolic Stimulus in shaping the Consumer perception with respect to snack purchases. Symbolic stimulus factors play a lead role in building positive images regarding any snack product. Here shopping is done on the basis of symbols which are used to communicate ideas and to socialize. Symbolic attributes expresses the value of a brand and consumers expresses their own self-image by purchasing this. Snacks, whether it is ethnic or modern, form the basic part of any civilizations food habit. This study aims at understanding the importance of Symbolic Stimulus factors like; Brand, Price, Flavor, Advertisement, Display and Aesthetic Packing in the purchase of snacks. Primary data was collected from one forty one consumers regarding purchase stimulus by direct interview method using structured schedule by Random sampling. The collected data was analyzed using Friedman’s Test which is a non-parametric alternative for finding differences in treatments across multiple attempts. Other than brand and flavor no other symbolic stimulus showed the expected significance levels. This area opens huge prospects for future research, since symbolic factors contribute much to the marketing budgets of any organization