MARKETING
How to use music to sell stuff
A brief guide to music psychology
A few weeks ago I attended Nudgestock, an annual conference about behavioural science. One of the sponsors was Startle, a music consultancy which creates playlists to drive consumer behaviour. This set me thinking about how music affects marketing… so being the sort of nerd who likes to write down what I’m thinking about, I wrote it down.
The effect of music on human beings
“If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: The only proof he needed for the existence of God was music”.
— Kurt Vonnegut
Music, said Vonnegut, is what “made being alive almost worthwhile”. Even Friedrich Nietzsche, the famous nihilist, proclaimed that “without music life would be a mistake”.
The fact is, music enraptures the brain. Psychologists have suggested that playing a musical instrument benefits the brain more than any other activity; it is a transformative experience which has been part of human culture for at least 40,000 years, possibly longer. However, it’s only in recent decades that psychologists have begun to really understand how music actually affects the brain and behaviour.
The PAD Model
In 1966, psychologist Albert Mehrabian developed the PAD Model to measure emotional intelligence via Pleasure, Arousal and Dominance. This explains how people will react in an environment depending on how they feel.
- Pleasure refers to positive response.
- Arousal refers to how stimulated the person is.
- Dominance refers to the level of control the person feels that they have over the environment.
To put this in a retail context: if music creates pleasure without over-stimulating the customer, and makes them feel free to explore, they are likely to spend more time browsing, leading to more sales. However, if music creates the opposite effect the customer may feel pressured to leave the store.
What influences PAD?
There are four main aspects of music which influence Pleasure, Arousal and Dominance:
- Tempo is the speed of the music.
- Volume is the loudness of the music.
- Genre is the type of music.
- Mode is the musical scale and harmony.
Tempo
The tempo of music has a strong impact on customer arousal. For example, customers spend more time dining in restaurants when slow music is played, and in supermarkets people walk slower when the background music has a slower tempo. In other words, you can lower arousal and encourage people to linger by playing slow music, and vice versa.
Research has shown that people prefer music with a tempo of roughly 120 beats per minute, which matches the natural movement speed of humans.
Volume
The volume at which music is played also affects customer arousal, and has an effect on the amount of time that people linger. They tend to browse for longer if the background music is quiet and subtle, and spend less time if the music is overly loud.
This is partly because music affects people’s time perceptions; fast or loud music (with higher arousal properties) tends to make people perceive time as passing faster.
Genre
Type of music affects consumer behaviour and feelings of pleasure. Jazz and lounge music encourage people to spend more, and so does classical music — not because they purchase more items, but because they select more expensive items.
This is auditory symbolism — essentially the background music suggests to consumers what sort of place they’re in and how they should behave.
Mode
Music evokes certain types of emotions, and research suggests that happy music inspires the recall of positive memories. When mode and tempo are perfectly combined, sales increase; for example matching a minor mode (sad music) with a slow tempo.
Research has suggested that both mode and tempo affect people’s judgement of emotion in music, although tempo has a stronger effect.
Using music for branding and marketing
Music plays a crucial role in reinforcing brand identity. The music you play in your store — and even the music you select for your advertisements and social media videos — needs to align with your brand values and identity, and can also assist with improving brand recognition and increasing sales.
Key points to consider:
- Ensure the style and genre of music reflect the image you want to project as a business.
- Create a signature sound or jingle that becomes instantly recognisable.
- Use consistent musical themes across different platforms.
- Understand the musical preferences of your target audience and select music that appeals to them.
- Choose music that elicits positive memories and feelings to foster feelings of pleasure and loyalty.
- Use a slower tempo and lower volume when you want people to linger.
- 120 beats per minute is preferable for most people.
If you’re interested in what I’m listening to, I create brand playlists on Spotify. Unfortunately Spotify doesn’t have a tool to sort playlists by tempo so you’ll have to play it by ear.
