The effect of stereotypical music on the customer selection of wine in an online environment

The digital transformation of marketing leads to new forms of interaction with consumers. It has been established and well known that auditory stimuli generally affect human behavior. However, in the field of sensory marketing, only limited attention has been paid to the role and effects of audition in online marketing. In this research, we will further explore how sound influences consumer product selection in a digitalized setting. We have designed and performed an experiment in which respondents in a webshop environment were asked to select a bottle of wine from two different countries while hearing stereotypical music samples representing one of these countries. Our conclusion: In an online setting, auditory stimuli strongly influence consumer selection. In the case of constructed preferences, this effect was considerably stronger compared to well-defined preferences. These insights can help to further develop the effective use of sound stimuli in new forms of sensory marketing, such as virtual reality and other digital experiences in the marketing and sales context.

Impact of Product Design Representation on Customer Judgment

When researchers ask customers to judge product form during the design process, they often manipulate simplified product representations, such as silhouettes and sketches, to gather information on which designs customers prefer. Using simplified forms, as opposed to detailed realistic models, make the analysis of gathered information tractable and also allows the researcher to guide customer focus. The theory of constructed preferences from psychology suggests that the product form presented will influence customer judgments. This paper presents a study in which subjects were shown computer sketches, front/side view silhouettes, simplified renderings, and realistic renderings to test the extent to which a variety of judgments including opinions, objective evaluations, and inferences are affected by form presentation. Results show a variety of phenomena including preference inconsistencies and ordering effects that differed across type of judgment. For example, while inferences were consistent across form, opinions were not. An eye tracker identified differences in viewing strategies while making decisions. Associated data, such as fixation times and fixation counts, provide additional insight into findings.

Risk Preferences and Food Consumption

This article examines some of the risks intrinsic to food and discusses how those risks are perceived, or misperceived, by both consumers and the experts. It then discusses risk preferences and examines the literature that attempts to connect those preferences to food consumption choices. It also deals with constructed preferences—the idea that individuals might not have stable, well-defined preferences but instead that their preferences are constructed as needed and readily influenced by characteristics of the decision environment. Furthermore, the insights from that literature provide useful guidance for researchers studying food consumption choices and the inclusion of measured risk preferences improves model performance in the sense of painting a better picture of how consumers respond to food risk.