During our recent trip to Jax, Noah and I were talking about facebook. I mentioned it was a funny thing that right after he blogged about facebook, we suddenly started seeing a bunch of articles on the same subject covered by a few blogs/publishers. The Newsweek cover last week was about facebook too.

It was probably a hot topic for last week and quite a few leading publications wrote about it. But the very fact that we noticed every one of them made me think about this term I heard about a while back – isolation perception. But, after looking it up a little, I think the best way to describe this phenomenon, is the term “selective perception.”

A scientific explanation labels the phenomenon of selective perception as “the conscious or unconscious increase in attention for stimuli and information consistent with a person’s interests.” It couldn’t have been explained better. Everyone’s had these selective perceptions, but they’ve always been dismissed as interesting coincidences.

Think about it. Lets say, you wanted a pair of those newly released Nike Airmax sneakers. If you even waited a couple of weeks before you bought them, I can bet you’ll find at least a few people every day wearing those very sneakers you want. It’s the same phenomenon with any other thought that’s currently preoccupying your mind, be it the new music release you heard this morning, or some place you’ve been longing to go on vacation. You’d suddenly start seeing more of them because your mind is constantly looking for these stimuli, even at an unconscious level.

While this seems to be an interesting concept, I am not sure if marketers have ever used this to target consumers. How do we think a marketer could leverage this concept?

I vaguely remember reading an article a few years back, which talked about how an automaker in India (Hyundai) had introduced a new model with a limited edition sunset-yellow color (sorry, cant find the article). While only a few hundred cars were rolled out in this color, everyone started seeing so many of these yellow cars on the streets. I think the mega launch for the color did well to increase people’s selective perception of a sunset-yellow Santro (Hyundai model), and that color became a huge coveted hit.

Another example closer to home is the “I Am Not A Plastic Bag.” US launch. After I witnessed that long line outside Anya Hindmarch, I saw quite a few women with that bag later into the week. True, I wouldn’t have noticed these fashionistas if it weren’t for that morning line outside the Naked office.

While this might be two interesting and coincidental case studies, I think marketers can do well to tap into this concept more appropriately and enable better brand-attribute awareness. And then, the next logical step would be to figure out ways to leverage that attribute recognition.

So, do you have any interesting “selective perception” stories? Let’s hear it.

P.S. I still think “isolation perception” has a better ring to it.