
The future of audio is to harness the power of sound.
Steve Keller: “How can we use sound as a positive intervention. How it can have a positive impact around us. For example using sound in healthcare”.
A study on how Product-fit vs. Brand-fit background music effects sales, the store staff’s environment and the customers brand perception. We conducted an extensive field experiment in five of Hästens’ stores in New York. Hästens is a retail showroom that sells premium beds, bed linen, pillows, duvets and accessories.
The following three music interventions were studied:
(a) Brand-fit. A playlist developed by Soundtrack Your Brand where the music reflected values such as “exclusivity”, “calm”, “modern” and “down to earth”.
(b) Product-fit. A playlist produced by Soundtrack Your Brand where the music was based on a sleep playlist that was available among private individuals on Spotify, i.e. music that is associated with sleep/bed.
(c) No-fit popular music. Contained popular music that was neither brand-specific (a) nor product-specific (b).
In the in-depth interviews with the store staff, it emerged that the choice of music was very important for their working environment. One of the respondents commented on the song choices in the playlists as follows: “When the bad ones are on, it really affects me because it’s disturbing my workflow. It’s not like inspiring or putting me in a good mood. This kind of music (No-fit) puts me in a good mood.”
Another store staff pointed out that: “When it’s that kind of particular playlist (Brand-fit), it’s very irritating to hear, but when the music is great and well-known (No-fit) it makes you feel more upbeat, you plow through your work.”
In general, the store staff were more positive about radio music (No-fit), i.e. the music that contained popular songs that were not Brand-fit.
We analyze it as music has a different effect on store staff depending on what task is performed:
Situation 1: no customer interaction, monotone tasks, low cognitive involvement. Then recognizable and upbeat music is recommended. The store staff sings along, and it showed that this kind of music stimulates them and gives them energy.
Situation 2: customer is in the store, high focus, high engagement and high information exchange. Then the music recommendation is more soothing, non-upbeat and non-lyric music in order to not distract the communication between the store staff or the customers.
Since customer flow in the showroom was very low in general, the Situation 1 was most frequently occurring. Therefore, Brand-fit music, and the white noise part of Product-fit was very disliked as it was unfamiliar, calm and low in energy.
For example, one of the respondents said the following about this playlist: “When we have this particular playlist (Brand-fit), everybody is like, oh God we are going to have to listen to this a whole month. Shoot me. Literally. ”
During the ten test months, the three different playlists were randomly released into the five experiment stores each day, that is, randomness determined which of the three playlists would be played in the store during the day. This means that we could study the sales effects of the music interventions by comparing how sales differed during the three different music interventions. The total number of observations were 1,476, which corresponds to the total number of days during the experimental period when the five stores were open.
KPIs
We studied the following five different outcome variables per day:
• The number of sales quotes
• The sales value of the sales offers
• The number of sales orders
• The sales value of the sales orders
• Conversion rate, i.e. the proportion of quotations that become a sales order
Results
The sales results showed that none of the playlists had a significant effect on the 5% level (value <0.05) on the studied outcome variables, which shows that the music choices in the experiment did not have a statistically significant effect on sales in Hästens stores in New York. However, the results showed an indication that the sales value increases when the stores play the brand-fit playlist, but this result is significant exactly at the 10% level (p value = 0.093). There were also no statistical differences in the sales of playing product-fit or brand-fit music in the store. The overall conclusion of the experiment is thus that the background music has no effect on sales.
The customer interview results showed that the customers perceived the brand as luxury and expensive when Brand-fit and Product-fit music interventions were playing, the opposite when No-fit music was playing. Respondents exposed to the No-fit music playlist also had a less positive image of the staff, a high negative focus on the price but a more positive image of trying the beds and the products – more functional perception. However, respondents exposed to Brand-fit and Product-fit valued the staff service high, and had a positive focus on the decor and atmosphere of the store.
Conclusion
The conclusion of the experiment is thus that the background music had:
Steve Keller: “How can we use sound as a positive intervention. How it can have a positive impact around us. For example using sound in healthcare”.
https://youtu.be/4ote-olSsB8 Ola Sars and Paul Stuarts presentation starts from 44:00. Summary: – The global music market is transitioning onto the streaming model.– B2C has lead the wa with 347 million paying
Listen to Sven – Olov Daunfeldt and Ola Sars (one of the founders of Beats Music and now CEO of Soundtrack Your Brand) talking about the importance of background music for commercial marketplaces.
Thrilled to announce that my in-store music research project at Soundtrack Your Brand with professor Sven-Olov Daunfeldt @ HUI Research in collaboration with Filippa K, that started in 2016, was
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