--- title: Why a Baby's Laugh Will Make You Buy | TIME description: Martin Lindstrom, author of the new book Buyology, talks about the different ways brands can use sounds to better market products canonical: https://time.com/video/Anj5zkx4/ og:title: Why a Baby's Laugh Will Make You Buy og:description: Martin Lindstrom, author of the new book Buyology, talks about the different ways brands can use sounds to better market products og:url: https://time.com/video/Anj5zkx4/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/Anj5zkx4/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why a Baby's Laugh Will Make You Buy twitter:description: Martin Lindstrom, author of the new book Buyology, talks about the different ways brands can use sounds to better market products twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/Anj5zkx4/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Why a Baby's Laugh Will Make You Buy > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Why a Baby's Laugh Will Make You Buy [Watch (HLS stream): Why a Baby's Laugh Will Make You Buy](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Anj5zkx4.m3u8) (3:29)  _Published 2010-02-19. Martin Lindstrom, author of the new book Buyology, talks about the different ways brands can use sounds to better market products_ --- Jul 27, 2023 1:20 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Is It Better to Rent or Buy?](/video/YKDQGzmo/) ### Is It Better to Rent or Buy? [Guilty Dog Apologizes for Stealing Baby's Toy](/video/kZapkvKx/) ### Guilty Dog Apologizes for Stealing Baby's Toy [This Week In Health: Licking Your Baby's Pacifier Clean](/video/6zgUls6a/) ### This Week In Health: Licking Your Baby's Pacifier Clean --- ## Transcript >> Martin Lindstrom is a widely respected marketing guru and the author of Biology and Brand Sense; both of which explore how and why we buy. He recently conducted a number of studies on the relationship between sounds and consumer spending. I had a chance to talk to Martin about how the things we like to hear can influence branding and marketing. So Martin, every advertisement I see on TV has a soundtrack and yet what I'm getting from your work is that advertisers aren't really exploiting sound to its fullest potential and yet I hear plenty when I'm watching TV. So, what are they doing wrong? >> Well, what they're doing wrong is they're using what I call stand sound. It's the sound of 041 it typically sounds they're buying, but it's not really, point one, telling you about what brand it is. Now, if you are listening to a TV commercial, would you be able to hear who that is based on the voice or based on the sound? And secondly, they certainly do not play into the power sound has in terms of generating craving. >> Well, are there some natural sounds then that are more effective than others? >> Absolutely. Now, think about the sound of a baby giggling. In fact, the study we did shows that the number one most powerful sound in the word is the baby giggling sound. Now, it's so powerful that it's beating every other sound and almost double as much as the second sound; the sound of a grill, the sound of a cola being poured into a glass, the sound of a vibrating phone. And what's really fascinating is none of those sounds today are owned by corporations. That is going to change, however, over the next couple of years. >> Can sounds that once were positive become negative? >> They can. Now, if they're putting too hard, what will happen is that if certainly that category is associated with negative feelings, suddenly the brand will be teared down. Whenever I hear the Microsoft start out tune, I'm like, uh, you know. >> Why is that? >> Is it going to crash, you know? It's the crashing feeling, right? And I think all of us have tried it. As soon as your computer crash, you have to hear that startup tune again. >> Right. >> So, negative emtoins are certainly linked with the brand and that's the reason why a brand needs to slightly change or alter the tune not just exactly the same for the next 20 years, but have it slightly changed. >> How can we put this power to work for public service ads for charities, for other groups who are trying to do good and not necessarily sell a product? >> Well, it depends on what you wanna push for, but let's go back to the tobacco example. The most important thing anti the tobacco commercials and operations needs to be aware of face. If they show a picture of a cigarette, if they show the sound of a lighter or match, or person smoking a cigarette, all those things no matter how bad the context is-- served within is, you're actually going to make people crave for smoking. Go the opposite way and that means find sound that is creating disgust rather than appeal where you really have that heart- like, you know, I don't wanna affected by that. >> Martin, thanks so much for talking to us and I will be much more alert from what I hear in the future. >> Let's go and pledge for that. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Why a Baby's Laugh Will Make You Buy","description":"Martin Lindstrom, author of the new book Buyology, talks about the different ways brands can use sounds to better market products","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/Anj5zkx4/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2010-02-19T20:06:28.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Anj5zkx4.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/Anj5zkx4/","duration":"PT3M29S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/Anj5zkx4/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```