Abstract
While packaging designers have traditionally focused predominantly on stimulating the eyes of the consumer, it is important to note that packaging sounds can also exert a profound influence over our experience and behaviour. In this chapter, we focus on how the sounds that are produced when the consumer interacts with product packaging, both at the point of purchase and at the point of consumption, can affect their hedonic and sensory product evaluations. First, the relative importance of sound, in comparison to the other senses, is discussed in the context of the different stages of user-packaging interactions. Next, we provide examples of the influence of packaging sounds—both at the point of sale and during consumption—with a focus on how marketers can use “signature” brand sounds in order to both communicate functional attributes of the product and to stand out from the competition in the marketplace. At the same time, we review those studies that have examined the influence of packaging sounds on the sensory and hedonic experience of the consumer. We close the chapter by looking at some of the key opportunities associated with combining sound with other sensory cues. We also address the future trends in packaging sounds, including sound’s role in nudging/assisting peoples’ healthy/ecological lifestyle choices. Finally, we briefly touch on the topic of augmented packaging sounds.
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Notes
- 1.
Note that the focus of this chapter is on food and beverage (F&B) and home and personal care (HPC) products.
- 2.
In fact, wily marketers have seized upon the shoppers’ not-so-surreptitious reliance on sound to guide their purchasing choice for some products. Once we heard about invisible baffles being introduced inside a bleach container to change the sounds that are heard when the product was shaken in store (making the product sound more viscous).
- 3.
The participants answered 15% more questions correctly (99/172) than expected by chance (86/172), X2(1,172) = 3.930, p = 0.047.
- 4.
Recalling the Ideal Gas Law (PV = nRT), pressure is proportional to temperature in the closed system of a soda can. This means that the same product at a higher temperature will have higher pressure, with the volume of the container and amount of liquid being constant.
- 5.
Frequent use packaging usually involves what Krishna, Cian, and Aydinoglu (2017) term “intermediate packaging”. In their lexicon, “outer packaging” involves the outermost layer of packaging, such as the paper box, a pill bottle, or mascara tube might be sold in, whereas “intermediate packaging” would refer to the pill bottle and “inner packaging” to the design of the pill itself. Therefore, package interaction at the point of purchase involves the outer packaging, whereas package interaction at the point of consumption involves the intermediate and inner packaging.
- 6.
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Wang, Q.J., Spence, C. (2019). Sonic Packaging: How Packaging Sounds Influence Multisensory Product Evaluation. In: Velasco, C., Spence, C. (eds) Multisensory Packaging. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94977-2_5
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