Index of Paper Presentations for the Parallel Sessions - Academy of ...

The careful, systematic and deliberate manipulation of ‗atmosphere‘ in retail settings is wellestablishedin the corporate branding literature. Decades ago, Kotler (1973) argued thatatmosphere was a vital marketing tool for businesses seeking a competitive advantage. In recentyears, researchers and practitioners have continued to build upon the theory and implementationof the components of ‗atmosphere‘ in order to increase product differentiation, servicememorability and ensure long-lasting brand memories for stakeholders. Although the retailsector, unsurprisingly perhaps, has been the focus of research on the use of atmosphere as amarketing tool since its raison d‘etre appears to be entirely geared to the seduction of theconsumer via multisensory means -- aesthetic, visual, sonic and olfactory, among others –scholars have begun to make welcome inroads into other sectors such as hospitality (Heide,Lærdal and Grønhaug, 2009) and a host of retail settings.The financial services sector may not appear to be an obvious site for the use of atmosphere toenhance the brand experience and brand identity. Traditionally regarded as serious, evenintimidating, places where customers visit only to conduct pecuniary business with a bank officer,manager or other officer, we argue that retail banks, like other sectors, are beginning to develop arange of multisensory marketing tools to influence the ways in which they are perceived andaccepted by stakeholders. To date, there has been no literature, however, which examines howthe retail banking sector uses various tools of this kind to cultivate brand image and to carve out adifferent corporate identity in the minds of shareholders, customers and the media. Moreempirical studies are, therefore, needed in this area. Relatedly, there has been no in-depthinvestigation of how retail banks may be innovating -- rather than simply taking the lead fromother sectors -- in the area of brand atmospherics. Our paper aims to address these gaps in theliterature by presenting the findings of a study into a retail banking group in Singapore and itsinnovative use of ‗atmosphere‘ in its branches.One of the purposes of our paper, therefore, is to investigate how Asian retail banks aretransforming the ways in which they manage their brand identity through the innovative use ofatmosphere and other multi-sensory marketing tools, in line with changing consumer tastes. Theoverall objective is to gain insights into how they exploit atmospheric strategies to appeal toconsumers‘ changing tastes and preferences, enhance the experience of banking, manage first andlast impressions and generally create a highly positive brand image and identity in the minds ofcustomers. While the researchers and academics in general claim that there has been littleempirical research on the ‗atmospherics‘ of retail service settings and its impact on consumers‘service experience (Hutton and Richardson, 1995; Hoffman and Turly, 2002) research into