There is meaning in sound that transcends language. Structural differences in the sound of a spokesperson's voice or a piece of background music can influence a consumer's perception of product attributes through cross-modal inference. This article examines how differences in acoustic pitch in marketing communications influence consumer's perceptions of product size. Through six studies, the authors find that when associated with a product, lower pitch in voice or music leads consumers to infer a larger product size. Furthermore, evidence shows that this pitch–size effect occurs through a process of visual mental imagery, which can be facilitated through stronger visualization cues delivered via auditory channels and reduced when size perceptions are assessed directly in the presence of visual product information. The cross-modal effects between auditory stimuli and physical products represent an unexplored influence on consumer perception and behavior with important managerial and theoretical implications.

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Consumers are increasingly mindful of corporate social responsibility (CSR) when making purchase and consumption decisions, but evidence of the impact of CSR initiatives on actual purchase decisions is lacking. This article introduces a novel brand accountability–based framework of consumer response to CSR initiatives, which categorizes CSR efforts as “corrective,” “compensating,” or “cultivating goodwill.” Leveraging a database of CSR press releases by leading consumer packaged goods brands, the authors examine the effect of the different types of CSR announcements on brand sales. The findings suggest that CSR initiatives that genuinely aim to reduce a brand's negative externalities (“corrective” and “compensating”) lift sales, whereas CSR actions focused on philanthropy (“cultivating goodwill”) can hurt sales. The authors propose two moderators—CSR reputation and CSR focus on environmental or social causes—and a mechanism for these effects, which they examine under controlled experimental settings. The experimental results show that, conditional on CSR reputation, consumers perceive varying degrees of sincerity in the different CSR types and that sincerity mediates the effect of CSR type on purchase intentions. Overall, the results suggest that consumers are more inclined to reward firms that directly reduce the negative by-products of their own business practices than to be impressed by public goodwill gestures.

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Hearing is our highly sensitive warning system. As a sense, hearing has uniquely evolved to perform this alerting function and is perceptive to subtle ambient cues 10 that are associated with threat. We propose that one aspect of sound that may cue such associations is pitch, such that low-pitch (vs. moderate pitch) background sound nonconsciously primes a threat response resulting in heightened anxiety among consumers. Furthermore, this emotional response manifests itself in the form of increased risk avoidance. Seven studies in varied domains demon-15 strate that low-(vs. moderate-) pitch background sound results in higher anxiety, which leads to risk-avoidant consumer choices-for instance, being willing to pay more for car insurance or choosing a food option with lower taste uncertainty.