Elsevier

Journal of Business Research

Volume 58, Issue 11, November 2005, Pages 1583-1589
Journal of Business Research

It's beginning to smell (and sound) a lot like Christmas: the interactive effects of ambient scent and music in a retail setting

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2004.09.005Get rights and content

Abstract

While extant research suggests that olfactory and musical stimuli can influence individuals' perceptions and behaviors, the combined or interactive effects of these environmental cues is not well understood. Using stimuli associated with the Christmas holiday season, this research explores the joint effects of ambient scent and music on consumers' evaluations of a store, its environment and offered merchandise. A 2 (no scent vs. Christmas scent)×2 (non-Christmas music vs. Christmas music) experimental design was implemented in a mock retail store. Results indicate that the effects of adding an ambient Christmas scent are moderated by the nature of the background music. In particular, consumers' evaluations are more favorable when the Christmas scent is in the presence of Christmas music. The presence of the Christmas scent with non-Christmas music, however, lowers evaluations. Results and implications of the findings are discussed with regard to retail practice and environmental psychology.

Section snippets

Retail atmospherics

Published work on the effects of environmental stimuli in retail settings found its genesis in Kotler's (1973) “atmospherics” work, introducing the view that retail environments create atmospheres that affect shopping behavior. Subsequent research has used various environmental factors (such as crowding, music, color and olfactory cues) to create said atmospheres and has been conducted primarily in the tradition of environmental psychology. Donovan and Rossiter (1982) suggested that Mehrabian

Ambient scent

The use of ambient scents in retail environments has been addressed by a number of studies from the perspective of both practitioners (e.g., Miller, 1991, Pacelle, 1992) and academics (e.g., Bone and Ellen, 1999, Spangenberg et al., 1996). While specialty stores often rely on the inherent scents of their product lines to attract customers (e.g., bath shops and candy stores), many retailers have begun to rely on ambient scents not associated with any particular product to attract customers and

Music

Music is another environmental cue demonstrated to affect consumer behavior. Several studies have demonstrated that music can affect mood (e.g., Yalch and Spangenberg, 1988, Yalch and Spangenberg, 1990, Yalch and Spangenberg, 2000), perceptions of time (e.g., Kellaris and Altsech, 1992, Kellaris and Kent, 1992), sales in food services (e.g., North and Hargreaves, 1998), interactions between buyers and sellers (e.g., Dubé et al., 1995), product selection (e.g., North et al., 1999) as well as

Interaction of ambient scent and music

The interaction of environmental cues is a normatively important and theoretically interesting area of research that has received little scholarly attention. In an effort to close our knowledge gap in this area, the current experiment investigates the interaction between the retail atmospheric factors of ambient scent and music.

As noted above, olfaction research has stressed the positive consequences of consistency between olfactory cues and other variables important to marketers. We know

Design and sample

A 2 (no scent vs. Christmas scent)×2 (non-Christmas music vs. Christmas music) full factorial design was implemented to test the hypothesis. The study was conducted in a lab environment, where olfactory and musical stimuli, as well as the participants' exposure to images related to a retail environment, could be controlled.

The sample for the experiment consisted of 140 undergraduate students who participated in the study for course credit. The participants were of North American birth who

Results

The effects of scent and music on the focal dependent variables were assessed using a MANOVA model. The analysis indicated no significant multivariate or univariate main effects of scent (all p's>0.16) or music (all p's>0.21). The multivariate interaction effect of scent and music, however, was significant, multivariate F(7,120)=3.01, p<0.01. The univariate analyses indicated that the interaction of ambient scent and music had significant effects on all dependent measures (all p<0.05). The

Discussion

The results of this experiment indicate that consistency between an ambient scent and music in a retail setting leads to more favorable evaluations of the store, its merchandise and the store environment. Behavioral intentions to visit the store are also positively affected by consistency between ambient scent and music. When inconsistency exists between the ambient scent and music, however, evaluations and behavioral intentions are either not affected or in some instances are negatively

References (31)

  • Laurette Dubé et al.

    The effects of background music on consumers' desire to affiliate in buyer/seller interactions

    Psychol. Mark.

    (1995)
  • Kineta Hung

    Narrative music in congruent and incongruent TV advertising

    J. Advert.

    (2000)
  • James J. Kellaris et al.

    The experience of time as a function of musical loudness and gender of listener

  • James J. Kellaris et al.

    Shaping time perceptions with background music: the effect of congruity and arousal on estimates of ad duration

    Psychol. Mark.

    (1996)
  • Philip Kotler

    Atmosphere as a marketing tool

    J. Retail.

    (1973)
  • Cited by (0)

    View full text