perception

Process by which people translate sensory impressions into a coherent and unified view of the world around them. Though necessarily based on incomplete and unverified (or unreliable) information, perception is 'the reality' and guides human behavior in general.

There are a lot of self-fulfilling prophesies in business. Customers tend to gravitate toward what they think will be dominant, especially for products and services with high switching costs, because they don't want to opt for a company that might not survive and because the dominant vendors on average have better products and services. So perception leads reality, and those who are expected to win become more likely to win. For this reason, marketing needs to be focused on perception management. If a company can get the media to pick them as the horse to bet on, they'll be more likely to succeed.