Killer Whale or Stonefish: With whom will you choose to hang out with?
Imagine this: you have to choose between spending 30 minutes in a cage with a killer whale or a stonefish.
Which would you choose? And to make it more difficult, you don’t have wifi.
Stonefish seems to be the most obvious answer. And on the surface, it seems the right thing to do. But hold on a second.
Do you know that your chances of survival with a killer whale are higher than with stonefish?
Killer whales, also known as Orca, are not aggressive toward humans, unlike Stonefish, which is way more dangerous with its 13 venomous spines.
Yikes, not just one, but 13.
Chances are you will hardly be in this situation (unless you’re secretly an Aquaman); nevertheless, now you know if you have to decide between a killer whale or a stonefish, you will pick Killer whale cuddle over stonefish venomous spines.
But the question arises: why did you select stonefish over killer whale in the first place?
Perception bias:
The real reason for choosing to go with Stonefish is perception.
How can anyone with their senses want to be close to a species with “Killer” in their name?
None.
But as you know, the reality is different. In reality, “killer” whales are actually “friendly” whales. But for those poor soul whales, having “killer” in their name doesn’t help in their PR.
The lesson here is that negative information (data, insights, etc.) has far more impact than positive ones. And arguably, you can’t escape this; you have to live with it; what you can learn is how to manage it and use it to your advantage.
In the above choice, Killer whale because it had killer in its name did not get picked, and stone fish (this is why choosing the right brand name is imperative) got picked easily.
Forming perception is a human tendency. We constantly create perceptions about different things. Sometimes, we stereotype and make assumptions about specific groups (Black, Hispanic, Asian, etc.) making it hard to judge individual members of those groups objectively.
But it is not limited to only humans; we make perceptions towards ideas, decisions, other’s judgments, etc.
It clouds our thinking and makes it difficult to make the right decisions.
Perception in Finance
In 1999 .com bubble investors were only investing in companies with “.com” in their name.
Back then, the focus was less on financials and more on “.com” in the name. Today, many organizations in VR/AR, AI, or the Metaverse are getting massive funding because these industries are trendy.
But they still need to prove their worth to the customer (the end-user).
Or the 2022 Crypto crash & FTX collapse, where many VC firms invested in it because Sequoia or Softbank (big VC guns) also infused funding.
One possible reason could also be the charm of nerdy and quirky Sam Bankman-Fried on many investors😆.
In Marketing & Sales
Marketing is all about building perception.
It doesn’t matter what you think about your business. What matters is what your customers think about your business. Remember NFTs 😆?
Take the example of Nike; it doesn’t matter if you win or lose. What matters is that while wearing it, you know you have the winner’s shoes. And it’s building perception done right.
Every other big brand applies this strategy.
The idea is to form perception in the minds of the customers so that it becomes easy to deliver and transfer messages.
Another example with Nike; though their products don’t guarantee that you will win the game, people still buy their shoes because — they know Micheal Jordan Wears them.
Which spectrum are you in, Creating Perception vs Living In Perception?
Start creating perception bias if you want to influence your audience to make a decision, build a brand image, etc. Also, you can leverage it in your personal life.
While also keeping an eye on and be cautious not to get trapped in perception.
