Yesterday, I wrote about how scents can subconsciously affect your behavior. Sounds can do the same thing, at least that’s what one interesting study published in the Journal of Consumer Research says.
In “The Crossmodal Effect of Attention on Preferences: Facilitation versus Impairment,” researchers from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology showed that customers are more likely to purchase a product from a different location when pleasant sounds come from that direction.
“Suppose that you are standing in a supermarket aisle, choosing between two packets of cookies, one placed nearer your right side and the other nearer your left. While you are deciding, you hear an in-store announcement from your left, about store closing hours,” write authors Hao Shen (Chinese University of Hong Kong) and Jaideep Sengupta (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology). “Will this announcement, which is quite irrelevant to the relative merits of the two packets of cookies, influence your decision?”
Using the above example, the researchers say that most customers choose the cookies on the left, because they can visually process a product easier when it’s presented in the same spatial direction as the auditory signal. In other words, if it can be easily processed it will be easily purchased.
In another experiment, the researches asked participants to form an impression of pictures about two hotel rooms on a computer screen—one on the left side and one on the right. A speaker playing a news bulletin was placed on either side. Asked which picture they preferred, the participants more often than not chose the one that aligned with the side the speaker was on.
Finally, in follow-up experiment, participants more often than not chose soft drinks from a vending machine that broadcast a news bulletin.
This has me thinking. When I attend a baseball game and leave my seat to go to the concession stand, I end up going to one that is broadcasting the game so I can keep up with it while waiting in line. I wonder if those stands get more traffic because of the sounds than those that don’t broadcast the game. Now, maybe every stadium has a game broadcast at each concession stand and it doesn’t matter. I think it would be a good experiment, though, to test out the sound theory. Have some stands with a broadcast and some without and see which ones make the most money. You could do the same with merchandise booths. Have some play a pleasant tune and see if those get more traffic and sales than those that don’t feature a sound.
The key to these findings, though, is the sound has to be pleasant. If it’s unpleasant, the researchers say that people first turn their attention to the sound and then turn away in order to avoid it. So, maybe play an ice-cream truck tune. Or whatever sound the fox makes.
(Image via Flickr: Kent Kanouse/Creative Commons)
