Subliminal advertising, music, and wine

(Robin, move to Friends and Fun if more appropriate)

I have a very good mother-in-law. I like her a lot, but not as much as the USPS. She's the postal service's best friend, sending us 3-5 envelopes a week with newspaper clippings she finds interesting. One was just a couple of paragraphs, but intrigued me enough to search it out on Google News. A search for "accordion wine" found this:
http://www.parade.com/news/2009/01/how- ... works.html

The following portion was the clipping she sent:
Music also can direct us to certain products. For example, it can determine what kind of wine we pick up from the shelves. In one experiment over a two-week period, British researchers played either accordion-heavy French music or a German brass band over the speakers of the wine section inside a large supermarket. On French music days, 77% of consumers bought French wine, whereas on German music days, the vast majority of consumers picked up a German selection. Intriguingly, only one out of the 44 customers who agreed to answer a few questions at the checkout counter mentioned the music as among the reasons they bought the wine they did.

OK, so I have a couple questions about this.

1) First of all, is accordion really considered a particularly French instrument? My only accordio-centric CD is Polish (though of a French composer), a friend gave me because he knew I liked Erik Satie, didn't realize it was accordion till it was already purchased.

2) I guess it's possible that buyers could distinguish German music (if beer garden oompah style). But is it really possible that the vast majority of buyers would then buy German wines? In UK? I know that in the old days they drank plenty of hock, but my impression now is that German wines are about as popular in UK as here. On the other hand 77% French doesn't seem out of realm of possibility, no matter what they played.

Not to respond to the questions but to the research - Sounds like a good candidate for the Ig-Noble Prize of 2009.

Best
Rogov

You don't need music. There are plenty of subliminals in print advertising for wine and other spirits. In addition to the in between the eyes stuff, if one looks closely one can find dozens of sublininals inbedded in the print.

Yes, I think I might associate accordian music of the right type with France - not sure why - "Allo Allo" perhaps. As for the percentages - I simply don't believe them - neither for France nor Germany - surely a journalistic misunderstanding. Maybe the customers were 77% more likely to buy French wines, and something over 50% more likely to buy German.

By the way, I understand that this isn't really subliminal advertising, but used in title as that was what article called it.

I could see the possibility of a slight increase towards a particular type of wine (like maybe 1% increase in likelihood of buying German wine if one identified German music that one liked , but the increase would be from 5% chance of buying German to 5.05%, not over 50%), but clearly these percentages are preposterous.

My favorite subconscious marketing was the old Montrachet in Tribeca. When one went to the men's room, directly in front of you (around eye level) was a lineup of empty prestigous bottles of Montrachet. Above that was a poster of a nude woman, glancing back over her shoulder (more Weston/Stieglitz than Playboy). I also assumed that the idea was the customer, probably already drinking, might associate the pricey bottle with his chances with his dinner date.

OK. Here are the article details and abstract....

Adrian C. North, David J. Hargreaves, and Jennifer McKendrick (1999). The influence of in-store music on wine selections. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84, 271-276.

This field study investigated the extent to which stereotypically French and German music could influence supermarket customers' selection of French and German wines. Music with strong national associations should activate related knowledge, and be linked with customers buying wine from the country concerned. Over a two week period, French and German music was played on alternate days from an in-store display of French and German wines. French music led to French wines outselling German ones, whereas German music led to the opposite effect on sales. Responses to a questionnaire suggested that customers were unaware of these effects of music on their product choices. The results are discussed in terms of their theoretical implications for research on music and consumer behaviour, and their ethical implications for the use of in-store music.

They put equal numbers of French and German wines of the same sweetness level (8 types of wine in all) on 4 shelves at the end of a supermarket aisle. Here are the numbers of wines sold when each type of music was played:
French music - 40 French bottles - 12 German ones
German music - 8 French bottles - 22 German ones

So the percentge of French bottles bought from that display was 83% in the case of French music, and 35% in the case of German music. The claim that 77% of customers bought French wine when French music was being played is completely wrong, but interestingly enough that happens to be the proportion of the total number of French bottles being sold when French music was being played

Personally I think it is also interesting, and perhaps not surprising, that less wine in total was sold when Bierstube music was being played. I bet it did wonders for beer sales at the supermarket though!

The relatively high proportions of German wine being sold are probably due to it being given equal weight on the display to French wines - the customers were not selecting from the proportions normally being offered today. Note also the research is from 1999, when I think German wine was probably more popular.