For years, holiday retail success has centered on promotions, product mix, and pricing. But 2025 signaled a significant shift for marketers. Ambiance has become a measurable driver of traffic, spend, and brand preference. Consumers are actively seeking out businesses that deliver richer festive experiences.
Mood Media’s 2025 Holiday Survey revealed a striking evolution in shopper behavior. Nearly half of consumers reported changing their shopping routines to specifically visit stores with an engaging holiday atmosphere, up from 42 percent in 2024. For marketers, this turns ambiance into a strategic lever for acquisition, conversion, and loyalty, directly influencing where people shop and how much they spend.
Ambiance Drives Traffic
The most significant insight from the 2025 survey is that ambiance is impacting consumer behavior. Nearly half of the shoppers surveyed intentionally visit retailers known for their holiday atmosphere. Among younger shoppers, the motivation is even stronger, with Millennials and Gen Z prioritizing their shopping around festive environments.
The share of shoppers who said holiday ambiance influences their spending rose from 12 percent to 26 percent, more than doubling year-over-year. What was once treated as background decor now plays a measurable role in conversion and average transaction value.
Notably, ambiance is now influencing hospitality experiences as well, with 52 percent reporting that festive environments increase their enjoyment in restaurants, hotels, and salons. Many say that the feeling of certain spaces encourages them to stay longer, and 26 percent say it leads them to spend more than they originally intended.
Music Tops the Sensory List
While scent, décor, and signage all contribute to the ambiance, music is the most influential holiday cue. The survey found that 82 percent of shoppers notice holiday music the moment they enter a store, and 54 percent strongly associate certain festive music with specific retailers. Music has become a brand signal that quickly sets expectations and reinforces category identity.
As ambiance-driven shopping grows, music is moving from background noise to a strategic element of brand storytelling. Many shoppers are sensitive to the quality and curation of holiday music, viewing a well-crafted playlist as a sign of a brand’s thoughtfulness and attention to detail.
Emotion Sells
Holiday marketing has always sought to tap into emotion, but this year’s findings show just how powerful sensory-driven nostalgia has become. More than half of shoppers say that holiday music, scents, and decor evoke fond memories or sentimentality. This emotional activation directly influences behavior.
When shoppers feel emotionally connected to the space around them, their behavior changes. They stay longer, browse further, and are more open to discovery. This emotional pull translated into noticeably longer dwell times, giving retailers more natural opportunities for discovery, impulse purchases, and deeper engagement with inventory.
The emotional side of ambiance, nostalgia, warmth, and the sense of celebration is emerging as a performance driver and a key part of the overall customer experience strategy.
Younger Shoppers Are Leading the Sensory Design Revolution
Millennials and Gen Z are at the center of the shift toward ambiance-driven shopping, with 54 percent reporting that they specifically seek out stores with a festive ambiance, and nearly half reported that they spend more when the environment has the holiday mood they’re seeking. They describe these festive settings as a meaningful source of joy during the season, which helps explain why they respond so strongly to sensory cues.
Younger shoppers are more attuned to details than their older counterparts. The survey found that 62 percent of Millennials and Gen Z say that curated playlists improve their shopping experience, and they’re more likely to notice signage and other visual elements.
Older shoppers show more varied preferences. About 30 percent of Gen X prefer festive experiences to begin as early as October, while 37 percent of baby boomers and the silent generation would rather wait until after Thanksgiving. Baby boomers are also less influenced by ambiance, with 57 percent saying it doesn’t affect how much they spend.
For marketers, these generational differences make segmentation essential. Sensory design must be tailored to the preferences of the specific audience a brand aims to reach.
A Roadmap for Marketers and the Technology to Support It
Advances in experiential technology make these strategies easier to deploy at scale. Teams can now manage music and digital messaging across multiple locations while still allowing for local customization. Similarly, smart scent systems provide precise control over intensity, while analytics tools help marketers measure engagement and optimize in real time.
Experience is now a marketing channel. Brands that invest in these elements will elevate their holiday performance and build stronger loyalty long after the season ends.
The author, Jaime Bettencourt, is the SVP of Global Account Management and Marketing at Mood Media.