Perception

Hi,

In this part I will analyse the perception of cars and brands and try to define key notions on how French people perceive car brands.

First of all we have to define what perception is. The oxford dictionary defines perception as: “the way in which something is regarded, understood, or interpreted”. This definition implies two things:

-Brand perception is a subjective interpretation of a brand, its product or service. It means that we all have a different link with brands depending on our past experiences with it, our values and our lifestyle.

-Brand perception can be influenced by strategic choices from companies such as positioning or creating associations. In some cases, one can identify a gap between the brand image that a company want to create and the brand image that people have.

Brand perceptions rely on two attributes: functional attributes and symbolic attributes. Symbolic attributes can be managed by brands thanks to the use of archetypes or creating brand personality to differentiate its positioning.

In this part of the blog we will first analyse the perception of cars, then we will look more carefully on how companies try to create a strong and differentiate brand image thanks to marketing tools and finally we will analyse if the perception wanted matches with the real perception of brands.