Feeling good – May 2024
Public use of background music is not just any background noise or so called “elevator music”, but it greatly affects everything around us: the kind of experience shopping leaves, how the improvement of comfort leads to spending more time in the business premises and the kind of purchase decisions we make.
In Finland, there are over 25,000 business premises that have found known music to be the best way to build the right kind of emotional experience for both customers and staff.
From our experience the importance of music for the retail business premises are:
1. Customer Experience and Comfort
Background music in retail has a clear task: it helps customers enjoy their time in the store. Well-chosen music creates a pleasant atmosphere and encourages customers to stay longer. When a customer enjoys their time, they are more likely to explore products and make purchases. Music can also create a positive image for the brand and distinguish it from competitors.
2. Staff Job Satisfaction
A cheerful staff that enjoys music sells more enthusiastically and better. Background music can improve the work atmosphere and help employees cope even on busy days. Music creates positive energy and helps keep staff morale high.
3. Additional Sales and Impulse Purchases
When customers enjoy their time in the business premises and feel that something timely and relevant is happening in the store, they are more prone to making purchases. Music can inspire customers to buy and increase the number of impulse purchases. For example, specially tailored background music playlist for a bookstore with direct contextual link to timely campaign theme can entice a customer to browse through and buy related theme category books and other products.
4. Brand Communication
Music can be part of brand communication and support the company’s values. For example, an ecologically oriented company can choose music that reflects sustainability and nature. Music can also tell a story about the company’s history or products.
5. Recognition and Differentiation
When a store uses well-known music, it can arouse customers’ interest and make them stop to enter or linger longer. Music can also be a topic of conversation and distinguish the company from competitors. For example, nostalgic hits can bring back pleasant memories and make customers feel at home.
In general, it can be said that music is a powerful tool that affects the operations of retail businesses in many ways. The right choice of music can improve customer experience, increase sales, and strengthen the brand. If the goal is to complement the human experience with the most impactful music, known music has a great significance according to studies.
Critical business information about the effects of known background music is also constantly obtained through music technology. For instance, some clubs in the UK are offered data about the positive correlation between sales and music played (based on music recognition technology).
In Finland, Gramex has used monitoring data in the distribution of background music compensations for music professionals. Known music benefits from the existing emotional connection and memory between the song and the listener. This can be compared, for example, to known brands, which can evoke strong images and feelings in the experiencer.
Gramex and Teosto’s joint venture Musiikkiluvat Oy is part of ongoing European Union-funded Music 360 project that aims to define and measure the value of music from economic and non-economic perspectives. Finland focuses on retail business where the effects of background music with different music setups on customer and employee experience and its correlation with business result.
The local Living Lab research setups aim to investigate how business is affected if a background music playlist thought out according to the brand and local audience base is playing in the business premises environment compared to a randomly selected playlist or royalty free music “elevator music”. Recognized white space area seems to be the junction point of the customer bases and staff’s experience of music in the business premises environment which hasn’t been studied that much before. Music data is being collected with BMAT’s music recognition technology.
The local business premise partner consists of 4 major shopping centres in major cities in Finland, the biggest local bookstore chain with the premises in aforementioned shopping centres and one major daily grocery store. The Living Lab studies have been live during Spring 2024. The findings and insight of the research should help companies make data-based decisions on what kind of music should be played to ensure the best possible customer experience and staff job satisfaction.
Music360 