The Magic of Sound: Nudge Green Product Purchase with Natural Sounds

The psychology of sound and the way it influences consumer behavior has been studied for many decades. As a marketer, you can greatly benefit from understanding how you can use sound to positively impact your brand image and sales revenues. Scientific evidence is available to help you gain insight into how customers react to particular stimuli. With such valuable information, you can get into your customers’ heads and formulate more effective strategies that resonate with their motivations and preferences. 

How Sound Affects the Brain

When you hear certain sounds, your mental and emotional states are affected. Scientific research shows that certain types of sounds stimulate the brain and prompt varying responses. In the field of marketing, there’s heightened interest in understanding how sounds influence consumer behavior toward brands. 

Ever noticed how you feel the same kind of vibe when you walk into Starbucks stores? Their in-store music is carefully curated to create an atmosphere that’s inviting and calming. This makes customers stay in the store longer and spend more on their products. The auditory stimulation does not stop there. Various other sounds that customers are exposed to while in the store create a unique brand experience.

Sounds have varying psychological impacts on consumer behavior as it stimulates different regions of the brain. The physiological effects include shifts in the way you breathe and how fast your heart beats, among others. Depending on your product and brand, your customers might be more inclined to buy when they’re in a particular mental and emotional state. 

For instance, playing Christmas songs in-store has been found to put shoppers in a happier mood and has consequently resulted in higher holiday sales. In another study, the power of suggestion played a big part in the food choices of participants who were exposed to American, Indian, and Chinese pop music. Research into natural sounds, on the other hand, showed an increase in positive purchasing decisions for green products. Generally, consumers were found to make product choices that are congruent with the sounds that they hear. 

Nature Sounds and Green Consumption

In marketing green products, using nature sounds (chirping birds, flowing rivers or a breezy wind) could prove to be an effective strategy. Particularly among male consumers, studies show that these sounds increase the willingness to purchase organic food and healthier food choices. Your customers are also more likely to spend more when they’re exposed to such sounds. 

Using nature sounds in stimulating purchase decisions toward environmentally friendly and sustainable products is one of the more effective nudging techniques in green marketing. While marketing experts admit that more extensive research studies have yet to be conducted, there’s enough evidence that nature sounds not only push green consumption but can also increase the rate at which these purchase decisions are made. Putting it simply, when you expose your customers to nature sounds, they’re more likely to decide to purchase green products faster. 

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.02.29.582721v1.full

Strategizing with Nature Sounds

You can boost the effectiveness of your marketing strategy by incorporating nature sounds into your green consumption campaigns and in various customer touch points as well. These are subtle ways to influence your customers’ purchase behavior. But it’s not as simple as streaming just any track with nature sounds. You have to be more discerning and deliberate about the choice of sounds you use. If you have the budget, you might want to commission a professional to put together a track for you to use in your advertising materials, video clips, online content, and in-store background music, among others. 

Understanding your consumers, of course, is critical in choosing which nature sounds to use. Pay attention to the tempo and volume of the sounds you use. These affect your customers’ responses as well. It might be counter-productive to play nature sounds at blaring levels. Find the right sound and play it right to create the kind of environment that results in a positive sensory experience for your customers. 

Your Brand, Your Sound

Your sound should match your product and brand. It should complement all other elements in your campaign. Create familiarity—and consequently, trust—with consistent audio branding across various channels and customer touch points. For instance, you may choose to use waterfall sounds to sell your eco-friendly bath products. ‘Attach’ your sound to all places where your product is present. 

Take note that there are other elements you have to pay attention to. The congruence between your product and your sound should be supported by other environmental factors as well. In neuromarketing research studies, participants were able to process product information faster when presented with nature sounds. These studies were done in laboratory settings, however. They are limited as experts recognize that other environmental factors, such as visuals, scents, and lighting, could likewise play a part in enhancing positive purchase decisions and faster purchase rates. 

When It Sounds Right

The magic of sound for green products works best both in in-store and web store applications. Using these sounds in the background as consumers are presented with product options should facilitate the brain’s processing and prompt your customers to make the purchase right away. 

For other content, it would perhaps be wiser to conduct a study to gauge customer response first before doing a full campaign launch. This way, you’ll be able to make the necessary tweaks for a more successful campaign. Note, however, that you can make a stronger impact with an audio brand that’s consistently present in all channels and marketing content.    

Key Takeaways

• Choose the right sound to match your product. 

• Understand your target market and consumers’ motivations and preferences so you can choose the right sound.

• Be consistent in using sound across all channels to enhance brand association and create a stronger sonic brand.