Pop quiz time! Click "play" below to listen to a montage of audio clips of 15 blockbuster Hollywood movies from a recent episode of the KCRW Radio program The Business:
How many films could you name? Odds are you knew at least half of them, with only a few seconds of sound to prompt you. (Scroll down for a list of all the films featured in the montage.)
This is more than just a fun exercise in movie trivia. Do any of these clips evoke a memory or feeling along with the movie experience? There's plenty of science behind how sound can cue your emotions. It's called neuromarketing and expert Martin Lindstrom told Time Magazine about how it's being put to use by savvy marketers:
The 0101 department store in Japan, for example, has been designed as a series of soundscapes, playing different sound effects such as children at play, birdsongs and lapping water in the sportswear, fragrance and formal-wear sections. Lindstrom is consulting with clients about employing a similar strategy in European supermarkets, piping the sound of percolating coffee or fizzing soda into the beverage department or that of a baby cooing into the baby-food aisle.
Are you using the sense of hearing to take advantage of marketing opportunities that are hard-wired into our brains? Whether your customer's point of entry is on the phone, on-site or online, you can employ audio marketing that's rich with sounds that can be as effective as the best copywriting.
(Films featured in the audio montage: The Empire Strikes Back, The Sound Of Music, Jaws, Gone With The Wind, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Top Gun, The Godfather, The Sting, Apocalypse Now, Love Story, Finding Nemo, Goldfinger, Rocky, Flashdance, The King And I.)
