The Effect of Advertising Music as a Non-Verbal Cue on Consumer Responses

Abstract

Advertising music is an important component of advertisements that influences consumer responses as a non-verbal cue. Extensive research on this music has been conducted since the 1980s. This paper reviews these advertising music studies by focusing on the theoretical foundations upon which they rely. The review classifies research on advertising music into three categories based on: (1) classical conditioning theory, (2) elaboration likelihood model, and (3) processing fluency. The findings suggest potential future research directions, including (A) research on the effects of music in internet advertising and (B) research focused on improving processing fluency through the congruence of various factors such as consumer factors and marketing information factors, with an emphasis on unconscious information processing.

Keywords

• classical conditioning
• elaboration likelihood model
• processing fluency
• unconscious information processing