I’ve heard that brand before: the role of music recognition on consumer choice

When searching for and buying new products, consumers’ knowledge is often limited, some (but not all) options in the choice set are unrecognized. In such situations, research on recognition heuristic shows that people tend to choose more recognized option over unrecognized one, as they infer it has higher value regarding criterion being judged. Since humans particularly good at rapidly recognising familiar music, this paper examines effect of influence brand when using music cue. two experiments (N = 486), participants were familiarised with several excerpts advertising music. Participants then performed a choosing task decide which brands would purchase different products (e.g., headphones, cameras). Brands either presented clips or completely novel ones. Results showed pairing can be recognised by target consumers increased 6% (d .21). Importantly, participants’ preferences also influenced choice, increasing was liked suppressing extreme cases most disliked. This suggests ad practitioners should use cue integration framework working weighing all available musical extra-musical cues according their impact consumers. discussed terms practical implications measuring brand’s ROI heuristics-and-biases study effects consumer behaviour.