Literature Review On Perception

It is imperative to understand the meanings of various terms that will be used in this paper before guiding the reader through the gap in the existing literature. The literature review section will thus provide an overview on the meaning of brand (and branding), brand equity, perceptions and its influence on customers (based on past research and case studies) and conclude by identifying the gap between existing studies and the research proposal of this paper.

The subject of this research will be to investigate the factors that lead to perceptions and their correlation to the success of brands in the tyre industry. Keller (2001) emphasizes the importance of brand image and that the success of a brand depends on the strong beliefs and attitudes

According to Belk (1988), the idea of “extended self”, consumers through their ownership virtually communicate their own self identities. “It is the process by which organisms interpret and organize sensation to produce a meaningful experience of the world”(Lindsay and Norman, 1977). In the past, studies stated that consumers select brands which symbolizes their own internal feelings, goals and persona (Levy, 1959). Individuals support and choose initiatives depending on organization’s synergy with its own identity (Mael and Ashforth, 1992). The perception process follows multiple stages that lead to specific experiences of the world. According to Pickens (2005) there are four stages in the perception process: stimulation, registration, organization and interpretation. The first stage viz. stimulation is caused by external sensory factors such as smell, taste, hear, sight and touch. This simulation leads to registration of data/information. However, registration and organization of data/information is usually selective in nature due to the inner beliefs, motivation, experiences etc. of an individual. Therefore, individuals select information that will fulfil their immediate needs and disregard information that will most likely cause them physiological

However, there are few factors that leads to these type of perceptions. While most of the research focussed on the perceptions of consumers and their effect on purchasing decisions, few have actually determined empirically, factors that result in the formation of these perceptions in the mind of a consumer. Fatimah et al. (2012) have summarized that these factors can be grouped into five categories: cultural, social, physical, personal and the marketing mix (price, product, promotion and place). Their empirical studies showed that social, physical and marketing mix were strongly associated with buying behaviours of consumers of electronic goods in