Does Your In-Store Business Music Fit Your Brand Identity?
Why is strategic integration of music so essential for brands? In the experience economy, people no longer buy a service, but an experience, which provides memories or sensations engaging individuals in a personal way. Music can affect customers in many different ways. It can change a person’s mood, make them feel relaxed, spend more, walk slower; even make them want to try on clothes! When used correctly, in store music for businesses can be an incredibly powerful marketing and customer experience tool.
Background music is often strategically underused in a business environment. It is the factor that can keep shoppers happily browsing in the store for hours—or drive them out the door in a huff. Like fine wine, interior decorating, and philosophy, everyone thinks they’re qualified to be a ‘tastemaker’. When it comes to in-store music for brands, it takes a team of experts to build an effective sensory strategy.
Here’s an example: One of our music designers (while previously employed at another company) worked on Victoria Secret’s in-store music strategy, to differentiate itself from competing brands like Frederick’s of Hollywood. The company wanted its customers to perceive Victoria’s Secret as a classic-romantic brand rather than a racy-dangerous one. The music strategy deployed made it clear that, no matter if you shopped in Topeka or Tokyo, you’d hear baroque classical music. The result was an elevated experience that customers could tune into.
Oh by the way, here’s a tip for the male reader’s of our blog; women don’t line up at Victoria’s Secret because it’s cheap or has an ever-changing assortment of merchandise. They trust the brand and feel like a trip to a Victoria’s Secret store is a treat. The successful music design strategy implemented became the centerpiece that influenced its nameplate, visuals, and in-store experience.
If your business makes a transition from having no music, to having in store music, that music becomes an extension of your brand; another medium and sensory experience that can influence a customer’s perception of your brand. It’s therefore important that the music is aligned with your brand’s existing positioning and personality.
Because of its close tie to the senses, brands need to pay closer attention than ever before to their in-store music strategy and how it affects the customer experience and imprint it leaves behind in the mind of the customer.
Have questions about how to match the right in-store background music with your brand? Drop us a line below, or share in Facebook.
