Doucé Lieve, Adams Carmen, Petit Olivia, Nijholt Anton
Department of Marketing and Strategy, Faculty of Business Economics, Hasselt University, Diepenbeek, Belgium.
Innovative Entrepreneurship, University College PXL, Hasselt, Belgium.
Front Psychol. 2022 May 24;13:883920. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.883920. eCollection 2022.
Despite the robust evidence that congruent background music in the physical store environment positively affects consumer reactions, less is known about its effects in an online context. The present study aims (1) to examine whether congruency via multiple elicited crossmodal correspondences between background music and the online store environment (e.g., perceived lightness, loudness, and coldness of the cue/environment) leads to more positive affective, evaluative, and behavioral consumer reactions and (2) to investigate the moderating role of shopping goals on this crossmodal congruency effect. Previous research showed that low task-relevant atmospheric cues like music can have a negative effect on consumers when they visit a website with a purchase goal in mind. An online experiment was conducted with 239 respondents randomly assigned to a shopping goal (experiential browsing vs. goal-directed searching) and a music condition (no music, crossmodally congruent music, or crossmodally incongruent music). Our results show that crossmodally incongruent background music (vs. no music) leads to more positive consumer reactions for experiential browsers and more negative consumer reactions for goal-directed searchers. Conversely, crossmodally congruent background music (vs. no music) has a positive effect on experiential browsers and no adverse effect on goal-directed searchers. Additionally, the presence of crossmodally congruent background music leads to more positive consumer reactions than the presence of crossmodally incongruent background music, independent of the shopping goal. We extend previous research on multisensory congruency effects by showing the added value of establishing congruency between music and the store environment via multiple elicited crossmodal correspondences in the online environment, countering previously found negative effects of low-task relevant atmospheric cues for goal-directed searchers.
尽管有充分的证据表明实体店环境中与氛围相符的背景音乐能对消费者反应产生积极影响，但对于其在在线环境中的影响却知之甚少。本研究旨在：（1）考察通过背景音乐与在线商店环境之间多种引发的跨模态对应关系（如线索/环境的感知亮度、响度和冷感）实现的一致性是否会导致消费者产生更积极的情感、评价和行为反应；（2）探究购物目标对这种跨模态一致性效应的调节作用。先前的研究表明，当消费者带着购买目标访问网站时，像音乐这样与任务相关性较低的氛围线索可能会对他们产生负面影响。我们对239名受访者进行了一项在线实验，他们被随机分配到一个购物目标（体验性浏览与目标导向搜索）和一种音乐条件（无音乐、跨模态一致的音乐或跨模态不一致的音乐）。我们的结果表明，跨模态不一致的背景音乐（与无音乐相比）会使体验性浏览者产生更积极的消费者反应，而使目标导向搜索者产生更消极的消费者反应。相反，跨模态一致的背景音乐（与无音乐相比）对体验性浏览者有积极影响，对目标导向搜索者没有不利影响。此外，无论购物目标如何，跨模态一致的背景音乐的存在比跨模态不一致的背景音乐更能引发消费者产生积极反应。我们通过展示在在线环境中通过多种引发的跨模态对应关系在音乐和商店环境之间建立一致性的附加价值，扩展了先前关于多感官一致性效应的研究，反驳了先前发现的与任务相关性较低的氛围线索对目标导向搜索者的负面影响。
