How music can influence buying behaviour

2022-11-25 Leuphana professor successful at science slams

Lüneburg. Monika Imschloß is a professor of business administration, especially marketing, at the Leuphana University Lüneburg. In her research, she deals with sensory marketing and the influence of music on buying and consumer behaviour, among other things. She recently proved how exciting research can be with two first places in science slams. These competitions are about presenting scientific findings in short talks in an entertaining way.

Monika Imschloß showed that she has mastered precisely this art at the Science Slam of the German Marketing Day in Frankfurt am Main at the beginning of November. There she was able to assert herself against the presentations of other professors and successfully defend her title as best slammer. At the Science Slam at Leuphana, too, her presentation recently convinced the audience jury the most. In addition to an entertaining presentation, she also had an exciting topic to offer with her findings on how music influences purchasing and consumer behaviour.

The effect of music on cardiovascular activity and movement speed has probably been felt by everyone at some point, e.g. when jogging. Such an effect also occurs when shopping, when background music has an impact on the consumer. In a study of her own, Imschloß was able to prove, for example, that customers in food retailing stay longer in a wine department when slow music is played there.

Conveying moods and feelings through music is also an effect that retailers can take advantage of. In a study with pharmacies, the scientist was able to show that customers have more confidence in the advice given by the staff when so-called high-trust music was played there. These are soundscapes composed by specialised music providers, created from surveys on what trust might sound like.

If you want to draw the customer's attention to certain products, for example country-specific products, you should play music that is typical for that country: if you play Italian or French music in the supermarket, customers are more likely to look first at products from these countries.

Further exciting insights into consumer research are offered by the book "Multisensory Design of Sales Environments - Seeing, Hearing, Smelling." by Sarstedt, Imschloß and Adler (published by Springer-Gabler)