Impact of Perceived Neuromarketing Stimuli on Brand Resonance among Retail Shoppers

Abstract

Purpose: This study asks whether, and by how much, the neuromarketing stimuli that shoppers perceive inside stores shape their brand resonance, using data from organized retail shoppers in Patiala, Punjab, India. It also weighs the separate contribution of each stimulus dimension. Perceived neuromarketing stimuli are taken to be the visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile and emotional cues of a store that shoppers consciously notice but that are designed to act on responses below awareness. Brand resonance is captured as one composite index built on the four components of Keller’s (2001) model: behavioural loyalty, attitudinal attachment, sense of community and active engagement.

Design/methodology/approach: The data come from a single cross-sectional survey. Three hundred adult customers of organized retail outlets in Patiala, recruited through purposive and convenience sampling, completed a 37-item instrument answered on five-point Likert scales. Internal consistency was checked with Cronbach’s alpha. Simple linear regression estimated the overall effect of the stimuli on brand resonance, after which the five dimensions were entered jointly in a multiple regression so that their standardised coefficients could be set against one another.

Findings: All constructs were internally consistent (α from 0.77 to 0.90). Brand resonance rose with perceived neuromarketing stimuli (β = 0.442, p < 0.001), which on their own accounted for nearly a fifth (19.6%) of the differences in resonance scores. With all five dimensions in one model (R² = 0.206), tactile stimuli carried the greatest weight (β = 0.224, p < 0.001) and visual stimuli ranked second (β = 0.140, p = 0.046); auditory, olfactory and emotional stimuli were not significant. Bootstrap tests of the differences between the standardised coefficients found none of them significant, so the ordering of the dimensions is indicative rather than definitive.

Originality/value: Instead of costly brain or physiological recordings, the study measures neuromarketing cues as shoppers themselves perceive and report them. It examines five stimulus dimensions together against a composite brand resonance measure based on Keller’s four components in organized retail, a combination that, to the authors’ knowledge, has not been tested before. It also adds evidence from Indian shoppers in a tier-2 city, Patiala, a setting where such research is scarce.

Practical implications: Store managers who want closer customer–brand relationships may gain most by investing first in what shoppers can touch and see, and by treating other sensory cues as secondary