Adrian C. North

Reviewing congruity effects in the service environment musicscape

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a literature review that highlights significant findings from empirical research examining the impact of music within various real and simulated service environments.Design/methodology/approach – The paper examines the results of studies that have manipulated specific musical variables (genre, tempo, volume, and liking), and attempts to identify consistent patterns of findings to guide managers and researchers. The studies focus upon a range of dependent variables including evaluation of the environment, perceived wait and stay duration, consumption speed, affective response, and spending. Possible explanations for apparently inconsistent findings are discussed.Findings – A variety of studies reveal the positive influence of musical congruity upon desired outcomes. Future research proposals identify the need to examine defining‐attribute and prototype theories of musical congruity.Originality/value – The review highlights a range of implications drawn from...

The effect of musical fit on consumers’ preferences between competing alternate petrols

Music that ‘fits’ with the attributes of commercial products should raise the salience of those products over others, and therefore prime their selection. Participants were presented with two advertisements for two competing petrol brands, which featured music that did (not) fit with those brands. Brand preferences were not affected by the advertisements among participants who were regular users of one of the brands. However, participants who were not regular users of either brand demonstrated a preference for the brand advertised with music that ‘fitted’ the brand attributes. This demonstrates that musical ‘fit’ can influence product choice when consumers do not have a clear existing preference for one product over another, but is otherwise of limited commercial value.

The impact of narrator age congruity on responses to a radio advertisement

This study assessed the impact of the congruity between the actual age of the participants and the perceived age of narrator voices upon responses to a radio advertisement for a fictitious university. Attribute transfer caused by stereotypical age perceptions provided the explanation for results indicating that an incongruous (older) narrator significantly reduced perceptions of the image attractiveness of the advertised university. Likelihood of application and recall of advertisement content were revealed to be positive functions of the congruity between the actual age of the participants and the perceived age of the narrator. Stereotype theory explained results revealing how the incongruous narrator made the university appear significantly more attractive to mature students (aged over 29). Although this study identified positive results in using congruous advertising stimuli, it acknowledges the possible benefits of incongruous stimuli (e.g. in terms of attention gain and creative communication).

Death, attractiveness, moral conduct, and attitudes to public figures.

In this study, 2,894 participants rated attitudes toward their favorite public figure on the Celebrity Attitude Scale. It was noted whether each figure was alive or dead, and a panel of four independent judges assessed each in terms of their moral conduct and physical attractiveness. Dead figures appealed less and were subject to lower “intense personal” celebrity worship, and death was unrelated to “borderline pathological” and “deleterious imitation” celebrity worship. Physical attractiveness was positively related to overall celebrity worship and “intense personal” celebrity worship, but negatively related to “borderline pathological” and “deleterious imitation” celebrity worship. Moral conduct was associated negatively with “deleterious imitation” celebrity worship. Results are discussed briefly in terms of their implications for research on physical attractiveness and “copycat suicide.”