Article:          Let Your Senses Do the Buying

Publication:  Today’s Manager, Marketing section

Date:             Dec 2006 – Jan 2007

Journalist:     N. Ravindran MA

There is a link between a store’s environment and how well it does in sales. Intangible details ranging from lighting to music to visual messaging all play an interconnected role in improving the shopping experience, building customer traffic, and ultimately, lifting sales.

For decades retailers and researchers in the United States and Europe have been acutely aware that shopping is not just a matter of obtaining tangible products but also about experience and enjoyment. Some studies conclude that service and the shopping experience determine shoppers’ choices rather than the type of shop or merchandise.

Simon Faure-Field advises south-east Asian companies on how creative applications of in-store music, scent, and atmospherics reinforce customer loyalty and lengthen customer stay. His company, Equal Strategy, has advised such clients as Changi Airport, Mercedes Benz, Korean Air, Courts, Starwood Hotels, and many others on these unique branding techniques that are based on social and psychological research into consumer behaviour modification.

His philosophy is simple: ”Numerous studies have shown that getting the customer experience consistently right across all touch-points enhances your  brand and encourages customers to buy more. We help our clients create a fully integrated and consistent brand experience across their most important touch points. Equal Strategy provides value for its clients by ensuring customers positively differentiate the brand and managing this process through one point of contact to result in improved profitability as revenue per customer increases.”

Enjoyment and entertainment are important benefits of shopping, valued by consumers, and reflected in their spending. These benefits for shoppers can link to increased sales and profits for retailers and higher rental incomes for shopping centres. Several studies reveal the link between retail atmosphere and sales to be very strong and robust. If two stores differ in atmosphere, but are otherwise similar, researchers report enhanced mood, goal attainment, and higher spending on unplanned purchases at the one with the “better” atmosphere.

But what is store atmospherics? Faure-Field says these are external factors from the environment that are designed to establish a specific mood and image to stimulate sales: “This includes the store’s layout, architecture, colours, and other sensory inputs. I personally believe that store atmospherics is all these but must also encompass good service. After all, interception, the interaction between customers and store associates, ultimately sets the mood and greatly affects a retailer’s image.”

He describes atmospherics as the physical elements in a store’s design that appeal to consumers and encourages consumers to buy. “Retail atmospherics is designing buying environments to produce specific customer emotional reactions that enhance purchase probability. Have you ever visited stores that fire up your shopping mood whiles others leave you cold regardless of their high merchandise appeal?  What is in these stores that drives customers to purchase? As an avid advocate of atmospherics, the power of an effectively merchandised store to bring in increased sales never ceases to amaze me,” says Faure-Field.

Atmospherics is used to create attention, send messages, and arouse reactions or trigger sensations that lead to purchases. “If the customer was aroused by the store, they would feel alert and excited and their stay in the store would be longer. They would be more inclined to make eye contact and converse with employees in the store.” He explains.

This arousal would only be invoked if the store environment were pleasant, otherwise there would be either no influence in the store environment or a negative influence. One factor that enhances this is music. For the new Mercedes Benz showroom at Alexandra Road, Equal Strategy devised the music system that is in some ways integral to the Mercedes experience. Each floor of the showroom has a high-tech speaker array that plays varied tempo music that invokes an emotive response to the cars on display.

The music is controlled by a black box that has customized audio messages that is played at different volume and tempo levels at specific times during the day. The black box contains a hard disk and peripherals to control and play all the audio programming. The client does little other than turn the power on.

Audio messaging

“Interlacing audio messages helps retailers inform and entertain shoppers helping them make the right buying decision. About 40 percent of shoppers make an unplanned purchase after hearing an audio message,” explains Faure-Field.

Daily updates and scheduling keep content fresh and relevant to suit time and day of week. In terms of getting new play list, updating programming sequences and timings, or new audio voice messages,  the black box receives updates from the Equal Strategy control room via telephone line or LAN connection. Each box connects back to the control room at specific intervals to report status and that the connection is secure. Like the data on the hard disk, the connection is encrypted.

Multi-site retailers keep all sites consistent using Equal Strategy’s remote updating technology. Why the need for such high-tech gadgets when the music and audio can be easily and far cheaply burned on a disc for distribution to any outlet or branch? Faure-Field explains that that would bring into play the human element, and this is what normally manages to thwart the best-laid plans.

He recounts the case of an international client who runs a courier service. Its Malaysian operations had 12 branches. Faure-Field acceded to their requests and sent 12 CDs of the audio programming to each of the branches. Within a year, it was discovered that only some of the stores played the right CD, while most played their own favourite audio CDs.

“The biggest advantage of the black box is that any updates or changes can be done quickly and remotely. By eliminating the human factor, the programming can function at its best and there will be no need for anyone to monitor volume levels, song selection, message content, and voice-overs. This is left to my company and we can do this 24/7 365 days a year,” he explains.

Faure-Field is an expert on music copyright law as it relates to in-store broadcasting. At a conservative estimate, he believes up to 80 per cent or more stores in average Singapore mall will be broadcasting music illegally without a proper license. His clients have access to licensed music from an American-based bank of more than 2 million music tracks. He also advises companies how to create play list which broadcast a specific style of music which optimises consumer spending patterns in any given retail environment. This is a behavioural science and it increases customer spending appreciably.

Research suggests a relationship between characteristics of environmental music and both the actual and perceived amount of time devoted to a task. Music seems to affect actual shopping times. In one study, customers were exposed to either fast of slow tempo music. Individuals tended to stay longer when listening to the slow music compared to the fast music.

Perhaps the most surprising recent finding regarding the effect of music on time perception was that modality affected listeners estimates of time period duration in a manner contradictory to the conventional wisdom of “time flies when your having fun”. Perceived duration of time was longest for subjects exposed to positively valenced music and shortest for negatively valenced music. Thus, contrary to popular belief, in this experiment, time did not fly when the time interval was filled with an affectively positive musical selection. These studies are useful because retailers may select music based on its listener responses and familiarity as well as its other qualities.

One of Faure-Field’s latest projects is at Courts Tampines, where he has implemented different moods through the use of different music throughout the different floors of the new store. He says that the greatest strength in using music in atmospherics is its flexibility as it can be used to support the strategic positioning of a brand and create appropriate retail environments and business premises.

He aims to create a signature atmosphere for each client beyond just sight and sound. Equal Strategy was recently awarded the distributorship to introduce into Malaysia and Singapore a revolutionary new scenting technology able to counteract malodours in public places like hotels, malls and showrooms. Not only does this system mask odours with customized fragrances specially designed for each client, it also breaks down bad odours at the molecular level.

Fragrancing

The partnership with Brandaroma, a provider of aroma marketing solutions, aims to enhance the quality and effectiveness of a customer’s environment using fragrances which engage customers, evoking the most appropriate memories and mood. By selective the right fragrances Equal Strategy can create a relaxed environment, aimed at increasing sales and building customer loyalty.

Smell is a very powerful brand-building tool. For example, citrus awakes and the scent of peppermint stimulates the mind. Fragrances can be used to evoke emotions, enhance the mood, and reduce anxiety. The result is that customers tend to be more relaxed and browse longer, increasing the sales potential.

Within the past decade, reatailers and entertainers have begun to take the power of smell to whole new levels. Cinemas are incorporating smell into the movie experience. Japanese company NTT Communications Corp has created Smellvision that will have seven different smell released throughout Colin Farrell’s latest movie “The New World”.

NTT created scents designed to trigger specific emotions, including joy and anger. A floral scent accompanies a love scene, while a mix of peppermint and rosemary is emitted during a tear-jerking scene, Joy is a citrus mix of orange and grapefruit, while anger is enhanced by herb-like concoction with a hint of eucalyptus and tea.

Closer to home, one organization already using signature fragrancing is the Shangri-La group. A specific and unique scent was created and is delivered through the ventilation systems to the lobby areas of Shangri-La hotels all over the world. Guests who step in will instantly be able to recognise by scent, sight, and sound that they are in a Shangri-La establishment.

Sony Style also has a customized smell for all its stores. The signature scent creates a positive and memorable experience. Faure-Field says smell manipulation is still a young market but there is plenty of room for growth, research and development. He says: “In the States, Bloomingdale’s uses different scents for each department. They have a fresh baby powder smell in the infant department, coconut with the swimsuits, and lilac for the intimate apparel. It can thus work for different products within a mall.”

However, what excites him are the “cold” stores where the power of an effective retail environment remains untapped. He feels that many Singapore companies can benefit from maximizing both silent and active multiple selling.

Effective atmospherics communicates the store’s identity and utilizes every opportunity to promote its products through visuals such as focal displays and attractive presentations that not only beg to be touched but also consider human physiological needs and tendencies.

It engages the customers’ supporting sensitivities, that is, the sense of hearing, touch, smell and taste. “Successful stores are easy to shop. This means a well-organised merchandise category layout that follows logical sequencing and adjacency plans. Store atmospherics breathe life and excitement into the experience. It makes the job of selling and delivering exceptional service much easier,” explains Faure-Field. …. N Ravindran