Is Background Music Effective On Retail Websites?

Web designers often advise online retailers against incorporating background music on websites. However, the effect of music in brick-and-mortar retail settings has generally been found to be favorable. The research on the effects of music has been mixed. Our study aims to examine whether congruent music on the website homepage influences online consumers. Using the responses of 290 visitors to two different commercial websites, we test the influence of background music on consumers’ arousal and pleasure perceptions. The results indicate congruent background music on a website's homepage will generate positive affective responses of arousal and pleasure within users, and will enhance users’ perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment as well. The findings reveal the effects of respondent’ affective responses to the music differed by gender. Website music produces significant affective and cognitive responses in high web skill/low web challenge users and explains more of website enjoyment.     

Customer Response to Web Site Atmospherics: Task-relevant Cues,Situational Involvement and PAD

Using the pleasure, arousal, and dominance (PAD) model, this study seeks to extend existing knowledge about consumers' activities in online retail environments by focusing on the largely ignored role of perceived dominance. In online environments, perceived dominance might influence purchasing intentions both directly and indirectly through pleasure. Furthermore, consumers' perceptions of Web site atmospherics (informativeness, navigational cues, perceived organization, and entertainment) likely affect two dimensions of emotion (perceived dominance and arousal). This study also investigates the moderating effects of situational involvement on the relationships among the PAD dimensions for online consumers. The results affirm that perceived dominance has direct effects on purchasing intentions, as well as indirect impacts through pleasure. The impact of perceived dominance on pleasure also is moderated by situational involvement. Whereas high task-relevant cues exert significant effects on perceived dominance, low task-relevant cues influence arousal. Therefore, this research shows that perceived dominance relates to online customers' purchasing intentions, which represents an extension of existing knowledge about the PAD model applied online; it also provides notable managerial implications for e-marketers.     

Is sexy better than funny? Disentangling the persuasive effects of pleasure and arousal across sex and humour appeals

Although it is well known that sex and humour can help sell products, hardly any research has examined whether there is something particular about sexual advertisements that makes them more persuasive than other appeals. The present research proposed an empirically robust way to test the persuasiveness of different emotional appeals (sex, humour, control) by matching them on pleasure and arousal levels. Two experiments (N = 162; N = 301) examined the combined persuasive effects of different levels of pleasure (moderate, high) and arousal (moderate, high) for sexual and nonsexual appeals. Study 1 used a 3 (appeal: sexual, humorous, control) × 2 (pleasure level: moderate, high) between-subjects design. Study 2 employed a 2 (appeal: sexual, control) × 2 (arousal level: moderate, high) × 2 (pleasure level: moderate, high) design. The main dependent measures were attitudes towards the ad, attitudes towards the brand, and purchase intentions. The results showed that highly pleasant ads increased persuasion regardless of arousal and content, and that sexual appeals outperformed nonsexual appeals only under conditions of moderate pleasure and high arousal.     

The role of preconsumption affect in postpurchase evaluation of services

The primary objective of this article is to examine the impact of preconsumption affect on consumers' postpurchase evaluations. More specifically, we wanted to investigate how the two basic dimensions of affect—pleasure and arousal—contribute to customer evaluations of different types of services. To test our hypotheses, four service settings reflecting the quadrants in Russell's Circumplex Model of Affect were chosen. Data were collected at two points of time: at the preprocess stage and immediately after the core service delivery. The results of this study suggest that pleasure and arousal, the two dimensions of emotional responses to the preprocess service environment, may interact in determining postpurchase evaluations. The interaction effect was observed for global satisfaction judgments and for repeat purchase behavior, thus suggesting that the combined effects of arousal and pleasure need to be considered in the design of preconsumption service settings. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Do online peer reviews stimulate diners’ continued log-in behavior: Investigating the role of emotions in the O2O meal delivery apps context

There is growing evidence that online peer reviews posted on online-to-offline (O2O) commerce platforms are a valuable source of information stimuli in consumer purchase decision-making. The research into the impact of different factors related to environmental stimuli (online peer reviews) on consumers' continued log-in behavior is under-researched in the context of O2O meal delivery apps (MDAs). Drawing on the theoretical lens of stimulus-organism-response and pleasure-arousal-dominance (PAD) models, this study examined the role of text and pictographic online review content in evoking emotions that predict continued log-in behavior on MDAs. Using a quasi-experimental setup with 134 participants from Germany, the findings reveal that the textual content of reviews positively related to pleasure and arousal, whereas the pictographic content of reviews generated pleasure and arousal. All three emotions of PAD were found to be significant predictors of the MDAs continued log-in behavior. In addition to the main effects, the results also showed the mediating effect of pleasure and arousal on continued log-in behavior. Moreover, app familiarity was found to moderate the effect of review content on emotions, implying that consumers with high app familiarity evoke fewer diners’ emotions than those with low app familiarity. In the unique Western cultural context of this MDAs setting, the findings have important theoretical and practical implications for academicians, MDAs managers and developers, and food delivery firms.     

Similar or contrastive? Impact of product–background color combination on consumers' product evaluations

Based on arousal theory, this study explores the impact of product–background color combination on consumers' product evaluations through four empirical analysis. As predicted, the interaction of product–background color combinations and product types has a significant influence on consumers' product evaluations. For functional products, the product–background similar color combination can cause consumers' higher product evaluations. However, for sensory-social products, the product–background contrastive color combination can cause consumers' higher product evaluations. Moreover, the arousal level mediates the interaction effect of product–background color combinations and product types on consumers' evaluations. This research also demonstrates that only when the product color matches product type, the interaction of product–background color combinations and product types can improve consumers' product evaluations through increasing (decreasing) the arousal level, however, the interaction effect is no longer significant when the matching degree of product color and product type is low. We contribute to the visual marketing research by providing new insights and useful implications for using color clues to present products in marketing practice.     

Urban design and tenant variety influences on consumers' emotions and approach behavior

This paper extends Mehrabian and Russell's Stimulus-Organism-Response framework to investigate the influence of two selected environmental variables – esthetic design and tenant variety – relating to an urban shopping area on consumers' emotional states and actual shopping responses. Results of a survey conducted in an Italian town center show that the variety of tenant-mix positively affects both pleasure and arousal while esthetic design has a significant influence only on pleasure. Moreover, emotional states induced by the urban environment exert a different influence on shopping outcomes, with pleasure increasing the amount of money and time spent, and arousal positively influencing unplanned shopping and negatively affecting time and money. The paper concludes by discussing managerial and research implications for both retailing and urban marketing.     

Ethical judgment,subjective norms,and ethical consumption: The moderating role of moral certainty

Although various empirical works have attempted to explain the gap between consumers' ethical judgments and actual purchasing behaviours, the role of moral certainty has received relatively little attention. Moral certainty refers to the subjective sense of conviction or confidence one holds about his/her ethical judgment of an object. This study contributes to the ethical consumption literature by empirically examining whether the associations among consumers' ethical judgment, intention, and actual purchasing of ethical products (EPs) vary according to their level of moral certainty. We also examined the effect of subjective norms under the same conditions. The results of regression analysis revealed that the ethical judgment of EPs has a stronger effect on consumers' intention when consumers are more confident or convinced that buying EPs is fundamentally right, as compared to moral ambiguity. The effect of subjective norms was less effective under a high level of moral certainty. Nevertheless, the results indicated that there is no evidence for the claim that consumers’ intention towards EPs has a stronger effect on the actual purchasing of EPs under a high level of moral certainty. We discuss the implications of these findings to theory and practice.     

The impact of online celebrity in livestreaming E-commerce on purchase intention from the perspective of emotional contagion

The purpose of this study is to investigate (1) if online celebrities can directly emotionally influence consumers, and (2) if the other audiences of the same livestream can indirectly emotionally influence consumers to increase their willingness to buy the products recommended by the online celebrities. Therefore, to understand the reasons for the successes of livestreaming e-commerce. Two studies have been conducted: in Study 1, a questionnaire-based survey has been used for data collection and AMOS version 17.0 software was used to analyze the data of the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM); in Study 2, a web data crawler for data collection was developed using python software, and the collected data were processed by ICTCLAS text splitting tool and analyzed by Stata/MP 13.0 software for the econometric model constructed in this paper. This study found that the performance of online celebrities can stimulate consumers' emotions, and thus enhance consumers' purchase intention regarding the products recommended. This study also found that pleasure, arousal, admiration, and emotional trust can influence purchase behavior for cosmetics and clothing. For food products, only pleasure emotion, arousal emotion and admiration emotion can increase the willingness to purchase such products. For other audiences who watch the same Online celebrity for food products, the pleasure, arousal, and admiration emotions can increase searches for, and purchases of the products recommended. This study identified that online celebrities' performances can emotionally influence consumers' willingness to purchase products recommended by online celebrities directly. In addition, the emotions of audiences watching the online celebrities can indirectly influence consumers' willingness to purchase products recommended by the online celebrities.     

In-store music and aroma influences on shopper behavior and satisfaction

Retail markets are increasingly competitive and retailers continuously look to differentiate their retail offering. One way to differentiate is by providing a pleasant and exciting shopping ambience. This paper experimentally tests the effects of music (volume high or low) and aroma (vanilla scent present/absent) on young fashion shoppers in a real retail setting. Results show that volume of music and the presence of a vanilla aroma both have a significant impact on shoppers' emotions and satisfaction levels. Additional analysis reveals that the arousal induced by music and aroma results in increased pleasure levels, which in turn positively influences shopper behaviors, including time and money spend, approach behavior, and satisfaction with the shopping experience. Direct effects of arousal on behaviors as well as an interaction effect between music and aroma on pleasure and time spent in the store are also present. The paper contributes to the better understanding of shoppers' emotions and shopper behaviors in response to in-store atmospherics and offers retailers practical insights into how to create competitive advantage by customizing the atmosphere in their stores.     

Feeling grateful versus happy? The effects of emotional appeals in advertisements on self-made products

Increasingly, researchers are putting their efforts into understanding more about self-made products (e.g. reasons for purchasing these type of products). Nevertheless, it remains poorly understood as to how to effectively promote such products. Understanding whether using emotions (e.g. gratitude) in an advertisement may increase the effectiveness of advertising is still open to debate. Based on the cognitive theory of emotions, in the present study, the effect of emotional appeals on purchase intentions is explored through three experiments. Study 1 examines the effect of gratitude (vs. no-appeal) on consumer's click through behavior for self-made products. The results show that gratitude appeal poses a stronger effect on consumers' click through behavior for self-made products as opposed to no appeal. Study 2 provides further evidence of the gratitude effect (versus happiness, no-appeal) on purchase intention for self-made products in comparison to pre-made ones. Finally, Study 3 establishes desire to put in more effort as an underpinning mechanism for gratitude appeal and adds level of effort as a moderator. The findings suggest that marketers should incorporate gratitude appeal into their advertisements to increase consumers' purchase intentions by stimulating the desire to put in more effort.     

Online visual merchandising (VMD) cues and consumer pleasure and arousal: Purchasing versus browsing situation

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of various online visual merchandising (VMD) cues—high and low task relevant cues—on consumer pleasure and arousal under different situational involvement (browsing vs. purchasing). A random sample of 1634 female college students participated in an experiment in the context of online apparel shopping. The results of the study revealed a significant effect for high task relevant cues on pleasure and arousal under high situational involvement (purchasing situation). In addition, a significant effect for low task relevant cues on pleasure and arousal under low situational involvement (browsing situation) was found. Pleasure and arousal induced by various online VMD cues were positively related to consumer satisfaction, purchase intention, and approach behavior. The findings of the study emphasize a significant role of VMD cues on apparel Web sites, influencing pleasure and arousal, which in turn increase consumer satisfaction, purchase intention, and approach behavior. The study also provides an important implication for online apparel retailers developing Web sites that may attract both online browsers and purchasers. ©2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The effect of consumption emotions on satisfaction and word‐of‐mouth communications

This paper examines the impact of consumption emotions on consumers' satisfaction and how it affects what they tell other consumers. The conceptual model is based on the premise that pleasure and arousal influence satisfaction, word‐of‐mouth (WOM) communications, and the likelihood of generating WOM. A study of 470 moviegoers in a French Canadian city supports most of these relationships. The results indicate that even when the effects of satisfaction are accounted for, pleasure and arousal have significant effects on WOM. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The Impact of the Interaction of Utilitarian and Informational Reinforcement and Behavior Setting Scope on Consumer Response

The influence of the environment on the emotional responses and behaviors of consumers has been well established in the consumer behavior literature. The Behavioral Perspective Model (BPM) assumes that utilitarian reinforcement, informational reinforcement, and consumer behavior setting scope are independent dimensions of environmental influence, which can combine in particular consumption situations to produce consumer behavior. This paper empirically examines the possibility of interactions among these dimensions by means of the pleasure, arousal, and dominance (PAD) emotional variables. The PAD variables have been shown to mediate consumer behaviors such as the desire to stay or escape from the setting, to affiliate with others, and the willingness to spend money and consume. The results, showing an interaction between pleasure and arousal in high‐pleasure environments, which then leads to increased approach behavior, seem to confirm the synergistic effects of utilitarian reinforcement and informational reinforcement on behavior. This study appears to be the first to find and investigate a three‐way interaction between pleasure, arousal, and dominance in the context of purchase and consumption. This interaction suggests that the three structural dimensions of the BPM combine to produce consumer behavior. It also highlights the important role of consumer behavior setting scope in consumer situations maintained by intermediate patterns of reinforcement. The implications of these findings for theory and marketing management are discussed.     

Calibrating 30 Years of Experimental Research: A Meta-Analysis of the Atmospheric Effects of Music,Scent, and Color

Atmospheric in-store stimuli have been the subject of considerable empirical investigation for over 30 years. This research presents a meta-analysis of 66 studies and 135 effects (N = 15,621) calibrating the atmospheric effects of music, scent, and color on shopping outcomes. At an aggregate level, the results reveal that environments in which music or scent are present yield higher pleasure, satisfaction, and behavioral intention ratings when compared with environments in which such conditions are absent. Warm colors produce higher levels of arousal than cool colors, while cool colors produce higher levels of satisfaction than warm colors. The estimated average strength of these relationships ranged from small to medium. Effect sizes exhibited significant between-study variance, which can be partly explained by the moderators investigated. For instance, larger effect sizes were observed for the relationship between scent and pleasure in those samples with a higher (vs. lower) proportion of females. Data also indicated a tendency toward stronger music and scent effects in service settings as compared to retail settings. The results of this analysis, based on data aggregated across the research stream, offer retailers a guide to enhance customers’ shopping experience through judicious use of in-store atmospheric stimuli.     

Additive omnichannel atmospheric cues: The mediating effects of cognitive and affective responses on purchase intention

In today's channel-centric retail ecosystem the right mix and orchestration of online and offline stimulus is paramount towards providing an optimal store atmosphere and shopping experience. Applying the S-O-R framework, this research explores additive omnichannel atmospheric cues stimuli, in order to discover their impact on affective (i.e., pleasure, arousal and dominance) and cognitive (i.e., store environmental quality perception) states and their consequential effect on consumer responses in the form of purchase intention. Employing a four-condition repeated measures experimental design in a physical store, utilizing mobile, IoT and social media channels (Study 1), as well as a between-subjects online lab experiment (Study 2), this research sheds light into the affective and cognition-mediated causal mechanisms that influence shopping outcomes. This work reveals that combining stimulus from all retail channels within the physical store (i.e., omnichannel atmospheric cues) increases consumers' pleasure, arousal and the quality of the environment as a whole, which in turn positively influences purchase intention. However, the impact of dominance is only prominent at the more controlled, laboratory setting, in which purchase intention increases while dominance attenuates.     

Affective responses to consumer situations

The behavioural perspective model of consumer choice (bpm) proposes three structural components of consumer situations from which consumers' verbal responses to consumption environments can be predicted. These are utilitarian reinforcement, informational reinforcement and behaviour setting scope. It is argued that pleasure, arousal and dominance, presented by Mehrabian and Russell as environmentally determined affective reactions, are respectively feasible verbal responses to these structural components. Consumers (N = 561) completed Mehrabian and Russell's measures of these affective reactions and of approach-avoidance for one of four ranges of verbally expressed consumption situations derived from the model. The results indicate that, for these theoretically grounded ranges of consumer situations, approach-avoidance is satisfactorily explained by pleasure, arousal and dominance. Further, mean differences in these affective variables between situations which, the bpm argues, show distinct patterns of reinforcement and behaviour setting scope are successfully predicted.     

Mobile social commerce content,consumer emotions and behaviour

Mobile social commerce (MSC) is exhibiting a growing interest from businesses and buyers due to the increasing number of mobile app users and combination of e-commerce and sharing features of MSC platforms. The limited existing research on MSC recommends that the impact of MSC platform features/content on consumer behaviour should be further explored, while the social commerce literature emphasizes the necessity to investigate impulse buying (IB) and social participation (SP). Thus, this study adopted the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) theory to investigate the impact of MSC content's usefulness, interactivity, entertainment and authenticity, built from the literature, on consumer emotions (arousal and pleasure), and their relationship with IB and SP. A sample of 345 Generation Y Chinese consumers was employed, while responses were collected through a survey, being used partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modelling to test our hypotheses. Significant relationships were established between the content characteristics and emotions, entertainment exhibiting the strongest impact on arousal, and authenticity on pleasure. Arousal had a significant impact on pleasure, and arousal and pleasure significantly affected IB and SP, with arousal displaying a stronger impact. This research expands the MSC theory through the grouping of content characteristics, documentation on the impact on consumer emotions, the relationship between arousal and pleasure, and the effect on both IB and SP, extending the SOR theory applicability. Practical recommendations for Generation Y MSC marketing are proposed. The model could be extended by introducing privacy concern, content personalization, perceived risk as independent factors, and trust and planned behaviour as explained variables.     

Why Nonprofits Are Easier to Endorse on Social Media: The Roles of Warmth and Brand Symbolism

Brands often seek endorsements by consumers on social media (e.g., likes on Facebook). But is this marketing strategy feasible for all brands? To answer this question, this research investigates in seven studies the processes that underlie consumers' intention to endorse brands on social media. We suggest that consumers aim to signal their identity by endorsing brands online. Based on the Brands as Intentional Agents Framework and related research in (social) cognition and consumer behavior, we argue that consumers on social media primarily want to emphasize their warmth rather than their competence. Experimental studies 1, 2, and 3 distinguish between nonprofit and for-profit brands and show that brand warmth (and not competence) mediates the effect of brand type (nonprofit vs. for-profit) on consumers' intentions to endorse brands and branded content on social media. Experiment 4 demonstrates that this process is moderated by brand symbolism (moderated mediation). A high level of brand symbolism increases the positive effect of warmth on consumers' intention to endorse brands online, but only for for-profit brands. The fifth experiment shows that these effects are conditional upon the public vs. private distinction in consumer behavior: consumers prefer to publicly affiliate with nonprofit (vs. for-profit) brands but with regard to private affiliations, there is no difference between both types of brands. In experiment 6, the causal role of warmth (vs. competence) is further examined. Finally, we demonstrate that perceptions of brands' warmth and not competence reduce the efforts that brands need to make to achieve consumers' endorsements on their real brand pages on Facebook.     

Hedonic consumption experience in videogaming: A multidimensional perspective

Prior research primarily considers consumers' hedonic gaming experience, defined as an individual's level of pleasure, emotional gratification, and enjoyment from playing a videogame, from a unidimensional perspective. However, given the growing range of technology-enabled, hedonic game-related (e.g., aesthetic, competition, or social) elements, we argue that this one-dimensional view is rapidly becoming dated. Correspondingly, we propose a broadened multi-dimensional perspective of videogamers' hedonic experience, as informed by hedonic consumption theory and the theory of planned behavior. Using a sample of 294 gamers, our results confirm the existence of gamers' multi (i.e., seven)-dimensional hedonic consumption experience comprising escapism, fantasy, role-projection, emotional involvement, enjoyment, arousal, and sensory experience. We also find that gamers' emotional involvement, enjoyment, arousal, and sensory experience, in particular, drive their attitude formation toward a videogame, in turn impacting users' videogaming intent and behavior. We conclude by discussing implications that arise from our research.