Information Technology Reference
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ambience as well as compensating for the lack of human presence online,
and acts as a bridge to creating an emotional bond with a brand.
But does sound really help online visitors hear what their eyes cannot ena-
ble them to see? Yes, I believe so. Imagine for one second that you are blind
and that your online experience is not dominated by vision. The sounds that
you hear from a website enable you to build representations of unseen places
in the universe of the brand. Nearly every luxury brand's website currently
has a form of sound in all or parts of the website. If you visit one of these
websites, take a moment to close your eyes and empty your mind and try
to imagine that you're walking into a new arena guided by the sound you're
hearing. Based on what you've heard, you should be able to form certain
expectations of what you may visually discover in this arena. Now open your
eyes and wander through the website with a few clicks. Does what you see
correspond to what you expected to see when you were being guided by the
sound? Have the sounds integrated with the visuals and other sensory ele-
ments of the website? If yes, then the brand is on the right track to providing
a seamless web experience but if not, well read on.
In the physical retail environment, sound is used to stimulate different
feelings in the subconscious of the shopper through music type, volume,
pitch, tempo and other sound manifestations. For example, fast music is used
to generate high shopping traffic inflow and spending; loud and funky music
is used to encourage impulse purchases and quick departure while soft music
such as jazz and classical are used to prolong the length of time that cus-
tomers spend in a store. Slow tempo music on the other hand reduces the
pace of human traffic flow and increases sales volume. Research has also
shown that familiar and nostalgic sounds such as waterfalls, chirping birds
and Christmas songs also stimulate spending. This strategy can equally be
transferred to the Internet virtual environment and is effective when applied
appropriately. As stated previously, it is imperative to maintain a focus on the
brand identity and the target audience's expectations, and to apply the sound
elements that best address these.
Alone, a sound can perhaps be appreciated or considered to be revolting, but
when put within a specific context, it becomes more meaningful. More impor-
tantly, a sound heard in the context of an online experience enables understand-
ing in an emotional and intellectual way. For this reason, the sound on a luxury
brand's website should directly “reflect” the world of the brand, meaning its iden-
tity, personality, image, heritage, language and, in short, all of the brand's codes.
In the online sale of sensory products such as luxury objects, the use of
appropriate sound elements ensures that the luxemosphere is rich and encour-
ages stickiness and memory recall. However, it is important to apply the sound
element appropriately and where possible to avoid featuring sound on all the
pages of the website as this could become irritating especially if the sound
type and effect is inconsistent, like we find on websites like Mauboussin's
and Paul & Joe's. This means that the sound must have a function. Whether
