The document discusses how store environments can affect customer behavior through strategic use of the 5 senses - sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. Specifically, it provides examples of how colors, music, textures, smells, and food samples are used to influence customers and persuade them to buy products. The overall goal of these sensory strategies is to create positive brand perceptions and memories that drive customer loyalty and purchasing decisions.

1. CONSUMER DECISIONS: HOW STORE ENVIRONMENTS AFFECT CUSTOMERS’ BEHAVIOR | 1
Consumer Decisions: How store
environments affectcustomers’ behavior
Daniel S. Caldas
Undergraduate, Pre-Journalism (Advertising). -- RWG Class
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Daniel Caldas (or “Dan”) is an undergraduate pre-journalism student
majoring in Advertising & Social sciences. He worked at Mentes Digitais as a Social Media
Manager and was a member of the Strategist‟s department. Now, his focus is on traditional
Advertising and Marketing strategies.

2. CONSUMER DECISIONS: HOW STORE ENVIRONMENTS AFFECT CUSTOMERS’ BEHAVIOR | 2
Abstract
There aremany different ways to persuade consumers to buy products. From the use of a
popular content such as music to triggerunconscious emotions, to theorganization of products inside
the store to stimulateconsumerism.Equivalent strategies likewisehappens regarding customer
service, including the use ofdifferent colors to attract consumers, smellsto makethemmemorize the
brand,touch for a closer sensation, and taste, especially for food products. The purpose of this paper
is to explaindifferent strategies that business use to persuade its customers and how all of this
aspectsgenerate a particular environment, makingconsumers distinguish a specific store as one that
is different from itscompetitors.
Keywords
Consumer Experience, Store Design, Marketing, Costumer Behavior, Five Senses.

3. CONSUMER DECISIONS: HOW STORE ENVIRONMENTS AFFECT CUSTOMERS’ BEHAVIOR | 3
Another day, another dollar
7:00 am. Saturday morning. The alarm rings and an enjoyable song starts playing.“He”gets
up, goes to the bathroom and “takes care of business.” After that, he walks downstairs straight to the
kitchen. Opening the fridge, he realizeshe needs to restockit for lunch. He sitsat the table, drinking
coffee and watching the morning news on his favorite TV channel. There is a cut toa commercial
break. One of them captures his attention. A new “microwave food” is being offered by a big
supermarket franchise that is new in town. The food is presented in anappealing (even that he
knows it is not that much) way and, interestingly, the ad soundtrack features the same music he
woke up to.
8:00 am. He getin his car and heads to this supermarket. He turns the radio onto his favorite
rock station. The radio presenterstarts talking about a song that is becoming popular nationally. Yes,
it is the same song he heard in the morning and saw on TV. The presenter says that this song, “has
been brought to you by STORE X, a great supermarket franchise that has this new, tasty,
microwave food!”
8:30 am. He arrivesat the supermarket,parks his car, turns off the radio and heads straight to
the store. Without effort, the doors opens for him. He unconsciously notices that the store smells
good, like the fields of a heavenly farm.The music is relaxing, making him want to go back to bed,
and the design of the place, even if it is a big franchise, reminds him of the local markets in his
town. He walks all the way to the other side of the store, passing through various sections of the
market: Electronic gadgets, home supplies,baby care, gun ammunition are just a few of the sections
he passes. On his way, something catches his attention. A young woman with a big beautiful smile
in the “microwave food” section offers him a free sample of “this new tasty microwave food” and,
well, it smells good, sohe eats it. Buteven if it is very cheap, he is not interested in buying it. He
turns back to his major goal: buying supplies for lunch.

4. CONSUMER DECISIONS: HOW STORE ENVIRONMENTS AFFECT CUSTOMERS’ BEHAVIOR | 4
He finally arrives at the grocery section. Putting everything that he needs in his cart, he now
heads to the checkout, to conclude his adventure. Unfortunately, there is a line and he will have to
wait. It is making him bored. Suddenly, “that” song starts playing although he is not conscious of it.
Instead, he starts thinking about everything that he will have to doto prepare his lunch himself. He
starts feeling lazy. Looking to the right, conveniently, he sees that “tasty microwave food” and
starts thinking about not preparing lunch, but taking his time for something else.
9:30 am. The consumer buys the microwave food.
This situation, intentionally described to point out details of behavior modification, is how
brands strategically work to sell its products.As pointed out by Süle (2012), “the entire consumption
process might be described as a series of stages, arranged in a hierarchical order” (as cited in
Matsuno, 1997, p. 214). Consumer decision does not depend on a single offer opportunity, but on
an entire chain of experiences that are related to his backgroundperceptions (culture, desires,
experiences, flavors, etc). Craik 1973, Mehrabian & Russell (1974), Russell & Pratt (1980), Stokols
(1978)argue, “[…] the environment is a stimulus containing cues that combine to affect people's
internal evaluations, which in turn create approach/avoidance responses” (as cited in Spangenberg,
Crowley & Henderson, 1996, p. 68).The role of store design is to keep the consumer engaged in its
offers from the moment he arrives at the store he has heard about on the radio and seen on TV,tothe
moment the money is exchanged for product.
Selling happiness
There was a time not so long ago that retail environments had few standards to
meet. A store should be clean and organized to maximize sales per square foot. It
should also be pretty… Today, though, the retail environment must tie in directly to
the brand, and, in fact, speak the brand‟s value proposition. –Nancye Green (As
cited in Baker, Parasuraman, Grewal & Voss, 2002, p. 120)

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“Value”, according to the Oxford Dictionaries (2013), is defined as “the regard that
something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something […]”. A brand‟s
value proposition is not uniquely related to its monetary aspects, but also encompasses the
subjective perceptions that consumers haveregarding the businessenvironment.Normally, these
aspects are communicated by thecompanies‟ branches‟ layouts,in theirproducts, through the design
of the packages, and also by the use of music and scent cues. As Neisser (1976) points out, “[…]
consumers gather sensory information from their environments so that they can navigate their way
through them and make judgments and evaluations as they go along. Basically their multisensory
input (touch, smell, hearing, taste, and sight) forms the basis for human cognition (as cited in
Jansson-Boyd, 2011, p. 531).”This means the value proposition of a brand not only depends on the
price of products, but also on the consumers‟feelingsregarding them.
Humanity has evolved to a stage in which buying products isno longer just purchasing the
physical thing that one needs, but is also purchasing the entire experience that relates to its
subjective characteristics.Marketing researchers have noticed that business are changing their
“product-to-consumer” strategies into humankind issues (Kotler, 2010). According to this thought,
it is possible to argue that contemporary companies arenot just selling a product anymore,butare
looking to sell experiences related to human values and emotional perceptions.To achieve this,
businesses mustalways be rethinking or upgrading their strategies to create,or maintain, the brand‟s
identity for the customer.
“The concept of brand equity […] refers to the basic idea that a product's value to
consumers, the trade and the firm is somehow enhanced when it is associated or
identified over time with a set of unique elements that define the brand concept.”
(Erdem et al. 2013, p. 302)
Creating a brand concept requires effort from the company. There is no easy or inexpensive
path to reach a fixed positioning in the consumer‟s mind. This is donethroughunconscious

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communication strategies, includingthe logo‟s colors, the store‟s unique identifiable smells and
sounds, the individual consumer‟sstore experience, the products‟ placements,and other specific
strategies that represent the company‟s concept.
Manipulating the senses
“The crucial challenge for advertising, and all sponsored marketing
communications about brands, is what consumers can be made to learn about the
brand that transcends its transactional qualities.” (Alexomanolaki, Loveday &
Bennett, 2013, p. 54)
For each brand concept, companies must construct (or manipulate) different perceptionsin
the consumer‟s mind.Normally, before deciding which type of strategies will be used,
businessesconductPerception Research to identify how they are being perceived by the consumers
according to their strategies. This is an important process since it will reveal meaningful
information that is required to determine if these companies‟ ideas and strategies are on trackto
achieve theirgoals. In this process, how conscious and unconscious sensations will beperceived
from the moment that someone wakes up in the morning to the moment that money is exchanged
for a productis considered. For that, Spangenberg et al. (1996) mention that the way the different
aspects of the store‟s atmosphere combine will determine a customer‟s level of pleasure and
excitement when in that store.Considering that different environments affects people‟s behavior,
storesmust be perceived as places where the customers feel comfortable and, at same time, wants to
buy. Because of this, business work together with architects, designers and advertisers to achieve
the proper way of engaging the customers through the design of store‟s environment, which doesn‟t
just take how a store looks into account.
For a long time, vision dominated scientific research related to consumption.
However, in the past 15 or so years there has been a gradual but steady interest in

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how the other senses can impact upon aspects such as consumer decision-making,
product evaluation, and
attention.(Jansson-Boyd,
2011, p. 531)
COLORS (SIGHT)–McDonalds, Burger
King, KFC,Domino‟s Pizza,
Wendy‟s.These companies,and others of
the same type, for example, havea very
specific conceptual characteristic in
common: the color red. The colors red or
yellow, whenin strong evidence on logos
and in the infrastructure of branches,
powerfully affect the subconsciousof the
human brain, making people optimistic or excited toact (See image 1). As pointed out by Madden,
Hewett & Roth (2013), marketers use colors as a means of creating, maintaining, or modifying
brands in the customer‟s minds.
Since vision is generally the first sense that is activatedwhen a person notices something,
generally, the main objective for using colors in logos and in companies‟ branches is to simplifythe
amount of information to consumers, so that they memorize important aspects of the brand‟s
concept with minimal effort.
MUSIC(SOUND)– As Baker et al. (2002) discovered,
“As customers' perceptions of store music cues become more favorable, customers
will perceive interpersonal service quality to be higher1
. […in addition] As
12
emphases added
Image 1 –Psychology of Colors in Logo Design
(2013). [Image]. Retrieved August08, 2013
fromhttp://thelogocompany.net/blog/

8. CONSUMER DECISIONS: HOW STORE ENVIRONMENTS AFFECT CUSTOMERS’ BEHAVIOR | 8
customers' perceptions of store music cues become more favorable, customers will
perceive merchandise quality to be higher2
” (p. 128).
According to these assertions, sounds has great influence on customer‟s behavior. Music is
commonly known as being the universal language which directlyaffects the emotions of people,
influencing meaningful perceptions. For example, in fashion stores, depending on the type of store,
pop music will be playing to connect the store to what is new, cool or beautiful.As discussed by
Dolfsma (2013), “By consuming pop music, people want to express who they are, to which group
they belong, what their identity is. […] Since the late 1950s and early 1960s pop music has become
an important way for many people to distinguish themselves from others (Frith 1983, 1987a)” (p.
1020).Customers are influenced not only by the rhythm of the song, but by the entire relationship
that they have with the artists, which then translates into their “favorite” products, services, which
then makes the store become part of their identity.The use of sounds in marketing strategies aims to
increase the rate of engagement between the customer, the products, the stores and the brand.
TEXTURES (TOUCH)–The definition of “Touch”, by the Oxford Dictionaries (2013), is to “come
into or be in contact with”. However, this experience is not only physical. As Jansson-Boyd (2013)
pointed out:
“´[…] when consumers experience a haptically pleasant product it triggers an
emotional response that may be the factor that drives the evaluation of that
particular product. Consequently, by making consumers feel emotionally connected
to products they are ultimately making them feel closely connected to them, and
this in turn increases likelihood of purchase and repeat purchase” (p. 532).
Tactile strategies are commonly used for children. In a toy store, for example, a great
number of products offer the possibility to experience them by touching a specificpart such as

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button that will make the toy move or sing. Referencing Bushnell and Boudreau (1991) and Piaget,
(1952), Jansson-Boyd (2013) says, “Infants and young children clearly use touch to explore and
evaluate their surroundings, something that adults also do but to a lesser extent” (p. 532).This does
not mean that touch strategies are less effective on adults. Generally, they are the buyers, which
means that even if the strategy is directed to children, the main goal of it is to make the child
complain until the parent buys it3
.
SMELL & TASTE–Apart from announcing their products, the main objective of business to
advertise themselves is to achieve positioning in the customer‟s mind. As pointed out by Marcel
Proust, in 1913, in his “Proust Phenomenon” study, particular smells have the power of bringing
back memories. The strongest and longest lasting memories are the scent ones.“[…] scents are
processed in the limbic system of the brain, which is the center of emotions […] (Leukel 1976;
Restak 1984) argue (as cited in Spangenberg et al., 1996, p. 69)”. Smell memories are some of the
strongest memories that can transport people back to certain times and experiences. Because of this,
brands, small and large, from food companies tocar companies, to clothing companies and others,
artificially create a unique, identifiable smell to manipulate memory, relating the shop experience of
the customers with their emotional references. For example, when the customer gets closer to a
Burger King‟s kitchen, it is possible to smell that burgers are being “naturally” cooked. The scentis
a complicated chemical formula that is commonly referred to the„Smell of burgers being
grilled(Lindstrom, 2008)”When consumers smell these aromas, they are transported to, hopefully,
positive memories of this franchise, which stimulates the desire to buy.Smells not only will make
consumers rememberpositive memories, but will also increase their emotional relationship with the
products.
Conscious Consumption
3
For more information, watch The Corporation by Jennifer Abbot & Mark Achbar (2003).

10. CONSUMER DECISIONS: HOW STORE ENVIRONMENTS AFFECT CUSTOMERS’ BEHAVIOR | 10
To cite all the different strategies businesses use to persuade its customers would take
years. However, it is possible to say that the ways to strategically stimulate people to act (buy) are
extremely vast. Hence, beyond influencing impulsive consumption, Canter (1983) argues that“[…]
the most important role of a space (in this case, the store) is its ability to facilitate the goals of its
occupants (as cited in Baker et al., 2002, p. 122)”. “Buying” is nothing more than exchange money
for a material that will satisfy a need. The role, then, of companies is to facilitate the customer‟s
ability to find a specific product without effort, so that he feels “happy” about it and chooses to
patronize that specific store again.
There arestrong criticisms regarding how marketers usetools to “manipulate”
customers‟behavior for the sake of unconscious consumption, which is, getting people to buy things
that are not needed.However, what is forgotten by most customers is that conscious consumption
can be achieved without effort.A simple explanation for this would be that acompany can only offer
products and services that, through the power of advertising and store design, becomes desirable to
a targeted audience, but still does notdeterminethe customer‟schoices. Being aware that there are
strategies that businesses use to persuade people is the first step that leads to conscious
consumerism.A store is nothing else but a place where “happiness” can be found in different types
of products. These strategies are used not only to persuade a customer, but also to help him to make
the best decision. Even if that decision is not the best for him.

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