Professional Documents
Culture Documents
(2005- 2008)
Team Members
Principal Investigator
Bianca Grohmann, Department of Marketing, John Molson School of Business
Co-Researchers
Constance Classen, Loyola International College
David Howes, Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University
The proposed research investigates the role of the senses (touch, olfaction,
vision, and audition) in affecting consumers’ perceptions and interpretations of
retail environments. Extant research in marketing suggests that sensory stimuli,
such as color, background music, or ambient scents, influence consumers’
evaluation of the retail environment and the merchandise presented therein, and
affect consumers’ behavior (e.g., purchase amount, time spent at a store). While
this stream of literature is theoretically informative and rich in managerial
implications, most of it has focused on one sense at a time, and thus ignored the
joint impact of sensory stimuli on consumers’ evaluations and behaviors. Only
recently have marketers begun to theorize the multi-sensory consumer experience in
retail environments. The empirical literature supporting this theoretical activity
remains scarce. For example, to date there are only two studies on the interactive
effect of background music and ambient scent, both of which demonstrate that
congruity (or “fit”) of two sensory stimuli is important in evoking positive
consumer responses.
Reports of Findings
Click here to view some of the published and unpublished reports of the findings
of the "The Sensory Marketing" project.
Acknowledgments
This research is supported by a generous grant from the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada.