Imaprted and Experienced Impressions

I wrote an article on brand basics for another blog, in which I touched on the notion that people who have never experienced a product often have a strong impression of the characteristics of a brand (boys too young to drive have ideas about automotive brands, middle-class people have ideas about luxury brands, etc.) – and I’d like to spend a little more time meditating on that notion.

In brief, there are  “imparted impressions” that arise from learning about a brand, “experienced impressions” that arise from interacting with a brand, and some interplay between the two.   These are terms I’m using in this meditation – if they happen to correspond or conflict with any existing terminology, that’s entirely coincidental.    I’m unaware much thought has been put into this.

Imparted Impressions

Imparted impressions are ideas that an individual has accumulated about a brand or product with which he is experienced.   Consider my opening example of boys who are too young to drive, and yet who still have very decided opinions about automotive brands.   The impressions they have formed are likely to be highly influential in the consumer choices they will make when they get old enough to actually need the product, and in that regard they are important.

Imparted impressions are received from a myriad of sources, but it generally comes down to media depictions or word-of-mouth descriptions of a brand experience.    Such impressions may come from those who have experience of the brand, as well as from the many who don’t.   It is highly unlikely that the copywriter at an advertising firm has driven the precise vehicle that he is describing to potential buyers, or that when middle-class people who about luxury brands have any experience whatsoever of owning or using them (and may never have seen them).  Each is creating a fictional account, which others are expected to accept as fact (though there’s some argument over what percentage of the audience grants credibility to such accounts).

Because an imparted impression is a fiction, it can be anything so long as it does not exceed the limits of the willing suspension of disbelief.   And it is likely that even the most ludicrously improbably qualities can be attributed to a brand if the information is coherent among sources … if five people you know and trust all use the same adjectives to describe a brand, it becomes credible regardless of the fact that all five of them learned those adjectives from an advertisement written by a copywriter who had no experience of the brand.

Experienced Impressions

Experienced impressions, as the name implies, derive from actual experience of interacting with a product.   My expectation is that these impressions are much stronger and more credible than imparted expressions, as no matter how much we are willing to believe in a second-hand account, hands-on experience is far more credible.

There may be some gray area between imparted and experienced impressions in this regard:  a boy who has ridden in a car or has seen one on the road develops an impression based on experience – and his experience is valid (he actually did see the car).  Though this is experience is still considerably shallower than that of a driver or an owner, it is still valid experience, in that it is perceived of real objects and received as sensory data, and as such it is not entirely fabricated or conceptualized from nothing.

The gray area is further extended by cognition, as it has been shown that we have perceptual filters that seek to accentuate or deemphasize elements of real experience that do not match our preconceptions – such that we experience what we expected to experience in spite of some negligible evidence to the contrary.   Human memory also likely dulls experienced impressions, as we may not remember correctly – or we may doubt a valid impression if we suspect that our memory may be hazy, even if it is accurate.

That said, our experienced impressions of a brand are generally the most accurate and credible ones – such that once we have experienced a brand, it creates a strong impression that is extremely difficult to change.

Interplay between Experienced and Imparted Impressions

I’ve already mentioned selective perception – which is one method by which imparted impressions may mar experienced ones.   If we have been subjected to repeated accounts, from advertisers or from credible individuals, that a given product “tastes sweeter” than a competing brand, we are somewhat likely to perceive the brand to have a sweeter taste than we would if we had not been primed to believe so.

However, my sense is that the potential for an imparted impression to override sensory experience is greatly exaggerated.   We might fool ourselves into thinking something tastes sweeter than it actually does, but it is highly unlikely that the imparted impression of sweetness will maintain in the face of an experience impression of a product that is not sweet at all, but may be bitter.

I would expect that the degree of difference between imparted and experienced impressions may be influential – if the difference is but slight we will give our imparted impressions the benefit of the doubt – but also that the degree to which the difference is critical to the fulfillment of core benefits.  That is a, person who values “sweetness” in a product will be less likely to be mislead by imparted impressions than a person who values other qualities and for whom the sweetness is incidental.  He will simply not be paying close enough attention to that attribute to notice.

And so, for the most part, our experience impressions will override the imparted impressions – and the difference between the two will create a sense of delight (when something is better than promised) or disappointment (when something is worse than promised).  It could be argued that the best outcome of all would occur when there is no difference, and experience is exactly as promised – though while I have a sense this would impart a sense of comfort, I would also be inclined to think that the lack of difference would go unnoticed.   Of course this product tastes sweet to a customer who already believed that it would – so it’s no surprise, neither better nor worse, and hence unremarkable.

Implications for Marketers

In all, my sense is the implication for marketers contradicts the long-standing tradition in marketing to depict a brand as being far better than it actually is.   When this level of expectations is set, dissonance is likely because the eventual experienced impression that will be conveyed is going to be far worse than the imparted impression that marketing succeeded in creating – and in the end, it’s their own fault.

If a brand is to create delight in the consumer, marketing and other sources must have an imparted impression that is worse than their experience will eventually bear out.   It is only in this way that customers are impressed by the quality of the brand when they discover the experience to be better than expected – and the greater the difference, the stronger the delight.

At the same time, it is unlikely a product will be appealing at all if marketing sets expectations too low.   It is likely that advertising should seek to create an accurate impression in most regards, but to choose some elements to understate to leave room for customer delight to develop.

It also occurs to me that the ability of imparted impression to override experienced impression is generational.    The Silent and Boomer generations desperately wanted to blend in and be like everyone else, and to be compliant to authority – such that if “television said” something they might be doubtful of their own experience when the two are out of joint.  Generation X and the Millennial are far more individualistic, and are more sophisticated when it comes to the media (and particularly advertising) –hence less likely to be doubt themselves and go along with what “everyone else says” when their genuine experience proves to be different.

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As with many of the pages on my online notebook, this has been quite a ramble – but I have the sense that the key ideas are worth closer consideration and comparison to research findings.   I have the sense they will bear out, and that the implication is a need to adjust marketing to support a more positive customer experience.