Klemens Knöferle is Full Professor of Marketing and founder of the Center for Multisensory Marketing (CMM) at BI Norwegian Business School. He received his PhD from the University of St. Gallen, and has worked as a postdoc at Oxford University and as a visiting researcher at the University of Michigan.
In his research, Klemens studies consumer psychology. In a first stream of research, he examines how sensory processes (e.g., vision, hearing, taste, interoception) and sensory aspects of products, foods, and retail environments influence consumers. In a second stream of research, he explores the impact of new technologies (e.g., self-quantification, smart products, sharing of possessions) on consumers’ behavior and well-being. Overall, the goal of his research is to contribute to a better understanding of consumers, to enhance consumer well-being, and to help marketers design better products, stores, and experiences.
Klemens' research has been published in academic journals such as International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Experimental Psychology, Journal of Retailing, Scientific Reports, and Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. He has served as a reviewer for top journals across various fields, including Journal of Marketing Research, Proceedings of the Royal Society: B, and Journal of Experimental Psychology. Klemens teaches courses on consumer behavior, marketing communication, and research methodology. Building on his research expertise, he also consults international companies in various industries (e.g., food, automotive, retailing, consumer electronics, appliances).
An online experiment and a large-scale correlational study show that the effects of a humor appeal in product advertising go beyond consumers’ general attitudes toward the ad and the advertised product. A humor appeal influences consumers’ perceptions of the advertised firms’ competence and warmth. Importantly, the competence and warmth signaling values of humor in advertising vary with the nature of the humor appeal. We specifically find that an incongruity resolution humor appeal enhances consumers’ impressions of the firms’ competence but only when consumers can resolve the incongruity. A tension relief humor appeal enhances consumers’ impressions of the firms’ warmth. Humorous self-disparagement reduces impressions of the firms’ competence, while other-disparagement reduces both warmth and competence firm impressions. We discuss how firms can use humor appeals in their marketing communication to signal their different qualities.
Weiss, Stephanie; Knöferle, Klemens & Vossen, Alexander (2022)
Meaningfully Different? How Visual Semantics Help New Ventures Achieve Optimal Distinctiveness
Recent evidence demonstrates that the presentation of crossmodally corresponding auditory stimuli can modulate the taste and hedonic evaluation of various foods (an effect often called 'sonic seasoning'). To further understand the mechanism underpinning such crossmodal effects, the time at which a soundtrack was presented relative to tasting was manipulated in a series of experiments. Participants heard two soundtracks corresponding to sweet and bitter tastes either exclusively during or after chocolate tasting (Experiment 1) or during and before chocolate tasting (Experiment 2). The results revealed that the soundtracks affected chocolate taste ratings only if they were presented before or during tasting but not if they were heard after tasting. Moreover, participants’ individual soundtrack–taste association mediated the strength of the sonic seasoning effect. These results therefore imply that the modulatory effect of sound on taste was not driven by retrospective interpretation of the taste experience, but by mechanisms such as priming and crossmodal association. Taken together, these studies demonstrate the complex interplay of cognitive mechanisms that likely underlie sonic seasoning effects.
Wang, Qian J; Knoeferle, Klemens & Spence, Charles (2017)
Music to make your mouth water? Assessing the potential influence of sour music on salivation
People robustly associate various sound attributes with specific smells/tastes, and soundtracks that are associated with specific tastes can influence people’s evaluation of the taste of food and drink. However, it is currently unknown whether such soundtracks directly impact the eating experience via physiological changes (an embodiment account), or whether they act at a higher cognitive level, or both. The present research assessed a version of the embodiment account, where a soundtrack associated with sourness is hypothesized to induce a physiological response in the listener by increasing salivary flow. Salivation was measured while participants were exposed to three different experimental conditions – a sour soundtrack, a muted lemon video showing a man eating a lemon, and a silent baseline condition. The results revealed that salivation during the lemon video condition was significantly greater than in the sour soundtrack and baseline conditions. However, contrary to our hypothesis, there was no significant difference between salivation levels in the sour soundtrack compared to the baseline condition. These results are discussed in terms of potential mechanisms underlying the auditory modulation of taste perception/evaluation.
Moeni-Jazani, Mehrad; Knoeferle, Klemens, Molière, Laura De, Gatti, Elia & Warlop, Luk (2017)
Building on recent psychological research showing that power increases self-focused attention, we propose that having power increases accuracy in perception of bodily signals, a phenomenon known as interoceptive accuracy. Consistent with our proposition, participants in a high-power experimental condition outperformed those in the control and low-power conditions in the Schandry heartbeat-detection task. We demonstrate that the effect of power on interoceptive accuracy is not explained by participants’ physiological arousal, affective state, or general intention for accuracy. Rather, consistent with our reasoning that experiencing power shifts attentional resources inward, we show that the effect of power on interoceptive accuracy is dependent on individuals’ chronic tendency to focus on their internal sensations. Moreover, we demonstrate that individuals’ chronic sense of power also predicts interoceptive accuracy similar to, and independent of, how their situationally induced feeling of power does. We therefore provide further support on the relation between power and enhanced perception of bodily signals. Our findings offer a novel perspective–a psychophysiological account–on how power might affect judgments and behavior. We highlight and discuss some of these intriguing possibilities for future research.
Knoeferle, Klemens; Paus, Vilhelm Camillus & Vossen, Alexander (2017)
An upbeat crowd: Fast in-store music alleviates negative effects of high social density on customers’ spending
Research suggests that in-store crowding can lower customers’ spending, thus limiting overall benefits of high store frequentation. Here, we propose that this negative effect can be mitigated by adjusting store ambiance, specifically by using certain types of in-store music. To test this idea, we conducted a longitudinal field experiment in which we manipulated in-store music tempo and measured social density in six European retail stores. Analyzing over 40,000 individual shopping baskets, we found that social density had an inverted u-shape effect on customer spending. This effect was moderated by in-store music tempo, such that fast music strongly increased spending under high-density conditions. The increase in shopping basket value was driven by customers buying more items rather than buying items that were more expensive. Fast music thus alleviated negative effects of social density. We discuss the theoretical implications of these findings and describe how practitioners can use in-store music to counter negative effects of high customer density.
Knoeferle, Klemens; Li, Jixing, Maggioni, Emanuela & Spence, Charles (2017)
What drives sound symbolism? Different acoustic cues underlie sound-size and sound-shape mappings
Sound symbolism refers to the non-arbitrary mappings that exist between phonetic properties of speech sounds and their meaning. Despite there being an extensive literature on the topic, the acoustic features and psychological mechanisms that give rise to sound symbolism are not, as yet, altogether clear. The present study was designed to investigate whether different sets of acoustic cues predict size and shape symbolism, respectively. In two experiments, participants judged whether a given consonant-vowel speech sound was large or small, round or angular, using a size or shape scale. Visual size judgments were predicted by vowel formant F1 in combination with F2, and by vowel duration. Visual shape judgments were, however, predicted by formants F2 and F3. Size and shape symbolism were thus not induced by a common mechanism, but rather were distinctly affected by acoustic properties of speech sounds. These findings portray sound symbolism as a process that is not based merely on broad categorical contrasts, such as round/unround and front/back vowels. Rather, individuals seem to base their sound-symbolic judgments on specific sets of acoustic cues, extracted from speech sounds, which vary across judgment dimensions.
Knöferle, Klemens; Knöferle, Pia, Velasco, Carlos & Spence, Charles (2016)
Multisensory brand search: How the meaning of sounds guides consumers' visual attention
Building on models of crossmodal attention, the present research proposes that brand search is inherently multisensory, in that the consumers’ visual search for a specific brand can be facilitated by semantically related stimuli that are presented in another sensory modality. A series of five experiments demonstrates that the presentation of spatially non-predictive auditory stimuli associated with products (e.g., usage sounds or product-related jingles) can crossmodally facilitate consumers’ visual search for, and selection of, products. Eye-tracking data (Experiment 2) revealed that the crossmodal effect of auditory cues on visual search manifested itself not only in reaction times, but also in the earliest stages of visual attentional processing, thus suggesting that the semantic information embedded within sounds can modulate the perceptual saliency of the target products’ visual representations. Crossmodal facilitation was even observed for newly-learnt associations between unfamiliar brands and sonic logos, implicating multisensory short-term learning in establishing audiovisual semantic associations. The facilitation effect was stronger when searching complex rather than simple visual displays, thus suggesting a modulatory role of perceptual load.
Wan, Xiaoang; Woods, Andy T., Jacquot, Muriel, Knöferle, Klemens, Kikutani, Mariko & Spence, Charles (2016)
The Effects of Receptacle on the Expected Flavor of a Colored Beverage: Cross-Cultural Comparison Among French, Japanese, and Norwegian Consumers
Building on existing research into sound symbolism and crossmodal correspondences, this article proposes that crossmodal correspondences—systematic mappings between different sensory modalities—can be used to communicate non-musical, low-level sensory properties such as basic tastes through music. A series of three experiments demonstrates that crossmodal correspondences enable people to systematically encode basic taste properties into parameters in musical space (Experiment 1), and that they are able to correctly decode basic taste information embedded in complex musical compositions (Experiments 2 and 3). The results also suggest some culture-specificity to these mappings, given that decoding performance, while still above chance levels, was lower in Indian participants than in those from the United States (Experiment 3). Implications and potential applications of these findings are discussed.
Prior research provides robust support for the existence of a number of associations between colors and flavors. In the present study, we examined whether congruent (vs. incongruent) combinations of product packaging colors and flavor labels would facilitate visual search for products labeled with specific flavors. The two experiments reported here document a Stroop-like effect between flavor words and packaging colors. The participants were able to search for packaging flavor labels more rapidly when the color of the packaging was congruent with the flavor label (e.g., red/tomato) than when it was incongruent (e.g., yellow/tomato). In addition, when the packaging color was incongruent, those flavor labels that were more strongly associated with a specific color yielded slower reaction times and more errors (Stroop interference) than those that were less strongly tied to a specific color. Importantly, search efficiency was affected both by color/flavor congruence and association strength. Taken together, these results therefore highlight the role of color congruence and color–word association strength when it comes to searching for specific flavor labels.
Spence, Charles; Velasco, Carlos & Knöferle, Klemens (2014)
A large sample study on the influence of the multisensory environment on the wine drinking experience
Background: Researchers have demonstrated that a variety of visual factors, such as the colour and balance of the elements on a plate, can influence a diner’s perception of, and response to, food. Here, we report on a study designed to assess whether placing the culinary elements of a dish in an art-inspired manner would modify the diner’s expectations and hence their experience of food. The dish, a salad, was arranged in one of three different presentations: One simply plated (with all of the elements of the salad tossed together), another with the elements arranged to look like one of Kandinsky’s paintings, and a third arrangement in which the elements were organized in a neat (but non-artistic) manner. The participants answered two questionnaires, one presented prior to and the other after eating the dish, to evaluate their expectations and actual sensory experience. Results: Prior to consumption, the art-inspired presentation resulted in the food being considered as more artistic, more complex, and more liked than either of the other presentations. The participants were also willing to pay more for the Kandinsky-inspired plating. Interestingly, after consumption, the results revealed higher tastiness ratings for the art-inspired presentation. Conclusions: These results support the idea that presenting food in an aesthetically pleasing manner can enhance the experience of a dish. In particular, the use of artistic (visual) influences can enhance a diner’s rating of the flavour of a dish. These results are consistent with previous findings, suggesting that visual display of a food can influence both a person’s expectations and their subsequent experience of a dish, and with the common assumption that we eat with our eyes first.
Knöferle, Klemens & Spence, Charles (2012)
Crossmodal correspondences between sounds and tastes
Consumers’ Attribution of Mind to Possessions as an Impediment to Sharing
[Lecture]. Event
Hoang, Chi Linh; Knoeferle, Klemens & Warlop, Luk (2018)
Resolving Humorous Incongruity in Advertising Facilitates Impressions of Firm Competence
[Lecture]. Event
Knöferle, Klemens; Paus, Vilhelm Camillus & Vossen, Alexander (2016)
An upbeat crowd: The effect of social density and instore music tempo on retail sales
[Conference Lecture]. Event
Knöferle, Klemens; Knoeferle, Pia, Velasco, Carlos & Spence, Charles (2014)
Multisensory Brand Search: How the Meaning of Sound Guides Consumers’ Visual Attention
[Conference Lecture]. Event
Knöferle, Klemens & Spence, Charles (2012)
Product-related sounds speed visual search
[Conference Poster]. Event
Searching for a particular product in a supermarket can be a challenging business. The question therefore arises as to whether cues from the shopper’s other senses can be used to facilitate, guide, or bias visual search toward a particular product or product type. Prior research suggests that characteristic sounds can facilitate visual object localization (Iordanescu et al., 2008, 2010). Extending these findings to an applied setting, we investigated whether product-related sounds would facilitate visual search for products from different categories (e.g., champagne, potato crisps, deodorant) when arranged on a virtual shelf.
On each trial, participants were visually presented with the name of a target product and then located the target within a virtual shelf display containing pictures of four different products (randomly selected from a set of nine). The visual display was randomly accompanied by a target-congruent, a target-incongruent, an unrelated, or no sound. Congruent sounds were semantically related to the target (e.g., uncorking a champagne bottle), incongruent sounds were related to the product shown in the corner opposite to the target, and unrelated sounds did not correspond to any of the products shown in the display.
Participants found the target product significantly faster when the sound was congruent rather than incongruent with the target. All other pairwise comparisons were non-significant.
These results extend the facilitatory crossmodal effect of characteristic sounds on visual search performance described earlier to the more realistic context of a virtual shelf display, showing that characteristic sounds can crossmodally enhance the visual processing of actual products.
