Can a familiar positive sound affect purchase decision on retail environment? : - Nudging for healthier choice
Paakkola, Mirka (2017)
Paakkola, Mirka
Yrkeshögskolan Arcada
2017
All rights reserved
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2017112818505
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2017112818505
Tiivistelmä
In this Thesis a laboratory experiment was organised in Norway to test if familiar positive sounds like eating carrots or a sound of water stream in the nature, could affect the purchase decisions on a retail environment. The test was conducted in Norway with 16 participants that were divided into control and test group. All participants had eye tracking glasses on the experiment and the videos were analysed afterwards to see if there was a change or affect to visual attention when sample sounds were played. Afterwards they were asked what affected their choice of products. Theories from behavioural and environmental psychology as well as Interdisciplinary Retail framework were used to analyse the results and the concept of Richard Thaler’s Nudging was highlighted as an approach. The results showed that the test group that were nudged with sounds when they were choosing a snack for example between chocolate or carrots and drinks between water and Pepsi overall went for healthier choices and mentioned the word ‘healthy’ more times when giving reasons for their choices. Even though results cannot be generalised, the result shows an encouraging result that nudges like this might work in real life grocery store setting as well. More testing is needed with sounds in general as finding positive familiar sounds might prove to be challenging. Healthy choices especially for kids and youth are something that needs to be looked into especially in countries like Norway where consumption for sugary drinks per capita is high. Further research is encouraged in this field.