Effects of Music on Counsumer Behavior

The idea of using music as a way of advertising goes all the way back to colonial times when street vendors hawked their good to the tune of a melodic chant. Of course we also know that music has been used often as a way of fixing a product in our mind. A memorable tune that â€Å"sticks in your mind† is the marketer's dream. Music that is written for a company or industry often benefits the entire industry. One of the first industry wide musical plugs (no pun intended) was for the tobacco industry through songs such as the 1836 song Think ; Smoke Tobacco, by John Ashton and Pipe de Tabac by John Hewitt.Lyrics also play an important part in the use of music as advertising. Just as a catchy tune could attack your senses, a good â€Å"jingle† or cute lyrics could become a part of society for quite some time. The power of this form of advertising is just formidable. Consumer researchers have found emotional response to advertisement, by consumers. Background music is one o f the major component influencing audience responses to certain products that they buy. Popular music in television commercials is nothing new.In fact, television advertising right from its very beginning in the early 1950s has relied heavily on music to get people’s attention, set a mood, creates the right brand image and sells the advertiser's product. The reason why is simple it works. Music plays an important role on individuals belonging to various cultural backgrounds. Music can relax us, excite us, make us want to get up and dance or simply involve ourselves by listening. That's what makes it such a powerful tool in advertising. Very often, more recognizable songs are used as background usic to set a mood or to help establish an image for the product. Early television commercials in the 1950s featured well known classical masterpieces as background music, to attract consumers towards their product. Advertisers later on expanded themselves into jazz and rhythm and blues . Soon TV commercials were featuring songs like Duke Ellington's â€Å"Satin Doll† and Gershwin's â€Å"Rhapsody in Blue† as background music to help sell a variety of different products. Music plays the following role Entertainment:Music contributes to the effectiveness of an advertisement by making it more attractive. A good ad always tries to engage the attention of an audience, and makes it entertaining for them. To an extent all music broadcasted on commercial ads as well as radio serves as a loss leader. Any music can potentially act in this role of entertainment. Moreover, the music need not necessarily be evident of any special attraction with a particular product or service in order to play an effective and useful function. Structure/Continuity: Music can be used in various structural roles.As a structural role, music helps in tying jointly a sequence of visual images and series of dramatic episodes, narrative voice-overs, and a list of product appeals. This i s the function of continuity. Memory ability: Music should be such in advertisements that it increases the Memorability of the product's name. Consumers are known to favor products which give some degree of recognition or familiarity, even if it is merely the product's name. Thus, the association of music with the identity of a certain product may greatly aid in product recall. Lyrical Language:A fourth technique of musical enhancement is the use of lyrical language. Vocal music permits the conveyance of a verbal message in a non spoken way. Language utterances can sound much less naive or self-indulgent when couched within a musical phrase rather than simply spoken. An individual can respectably sing things which would sound utterly trite if said. Targeting: Once an appropriate medium is chosen, second considerations are targeting the consumer, thereby engaging or charm those viewers who constitute the target demographic group. Music has long been identified with various social and demographic groups.Musical style therefore assists in targeting a specific market. The style may function as a socioeconomic identifier or may act as a device for addressing a specific group of audience. Authority Establishment: Music enhances to the credibility of the product in this way that establishes its authority. A simple way of establishing authority is through expert testimony. Authority may also be fostered through testimonials of non-technical authorities . Thus to an extent to succeed in advertising an audience, should also be kept in mind , advertising done must also have genuity in it.Music affects shopper time perception: Several studies indicate that music can effectively reduce anxiety, increase positive mood ratings, alleviate depression, and decrease frustration. Music has also been seen to influence consumer’s time perception. Standing in queues listening to the right kind of music makes the waiting experience more pleasant and entertaining hence reducing the perception of time in store. Music helps in making impulsive purchases: Music helps consumers associate some feelings or emotions such as joy, love, fear, hope, sexuality, fantasy and helps in developing a mood for shopping.Music also helps in creating an impulsive environment that can be extremely beneficial to the consumers in selecting a particular product. Increase brand loyalty: Music helps in enhancing brand loyalty in a way that it integrates the meaning of a message of the particular brand thus creating brand loyalty amongst the customers. Music is a positive addition to the consumer environment: Music plays an important role by creating a positive environment, under which all consumers are influenced by music.Example: When an individual enter the shop of K;N’s the jingle of the brand keeps on playing thus creating a positive effect on the consumer . Music has also been used to induce either a pleasant or unpleasant affective state and examine its Interaction wit h the affective tone of an advertisement (Gorn, Pham, ; Sin 2001). Both arousal, pleasure can be manipulated with music. Music and Congruence: Park and Young (1986) examined the effect of music (present, absent) and three types of involvement (low involvement, cognitive involvement, affective involvement) on the formation of attitudes towards a brand in the context of TV commercials.Music increased the brand attitude for subjects In the low involvement condition but had a distracting effect for those in the cognitive involvement condition. Its effect for those in the affective involvement condition was not clear. They argue that music acted as a peripheral persuasion cue. When the music was attention grabbing it pulled listener’s attention away from the message and negatively influenced recall. The no music ads performed as well or better than the musical ads in terms of recall and recognition.Thus the relationship between the fit of the mood, induced music (happy/sad) develo ped the purchase decision for the customer. USES OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF MUSIC Fast or slow music in a retail environment Research found out that people move steadily when slow rhythm music is played. Study was conducted in two supermarkets found a huge increase in sales when slow rhythm music was played: â€Å"In that study the gross sales increased from $12,112 for the fast rhythm music to $16,740 for the slow rhythm music. This is an increase of 38%. In addition to it â€Å"Customers moved slowly when soft music was played, taking 128 seconds, and faster when fast music was played, taking 109 seconds. † Same results have been observed in restaurants: customers tend to persist when the music is slow and soft. Where you don't want people to linger, you could be better off playing loud, fast tempo music especially if you run a fast-moving restaurant. But, retail environments often want their clients to stay for longer time in their stores, so softer music is more appropriate. A study discovered that customer spent almost 23% more money in a restaurant when softer music was being played.Interestingly, increase in spending came on the drinks bill (which grew by almost 51% on avg), which are the most profitable items in most restaurants. ? Loud or soft Usually, people spend much less time in the environment where louder music is played One article wrote: â€Å"A person is likely to stay in a restaurant playing soft music 20% longer than if the music is loud, with a slight increase in the amount of money spent on food and drinks. For grocery stores, it was found that the volume made no difference on how much money was spent.Another study by Caldwell and Hibbert (2002) found that when slow music was played, patrons stayed for 20% longer but also spent more on food and drink – in fact, up to 50% more. In other words, to keep your customers, keep it soft and slow. And likewise, if you want quick turnover, speed things up and keep it loud. † In bar s, where music is very loud and fast that it hinders conversation, people drink more and drink faster. An academic study found: â€Å"Environmental music was associated with an increase in alcohol consumption. †¦ Forty male beer drinkers were observed in a bar. †¦The results show that high level volume led to increased alcohol consumption and reduced the average amount of time spent by the patrons to drink their glass. † Use of hit songs and unknown songs In business and retail environments, popular music tends to be too distracting, taking people away from the task at hand, and makes them focus on the music. You want the music to â€Å"MELT† in the environment, giving a feeling of calm or energy, but not grabbing the attention of the people. â€Å"Popular or hit† music is too catchy, and causes lower purchasing in retail environments and decreased productivity in offices. The usic that should be played has to be good and very close enough to hit music that people enjoy it, but it must not be too catchy. Classical or chill outs In a study it has been found out that â€Å"Classical music† increases the amount of money people are willing to spend. Normally, people will buy more expensive goods when classical music is being played. MUSIC AND MARKETERS Marketers uses music to reach at own goal in making advertising. Marketers doing in following way: Music Exists In A Context Music does not work alone. It exists within an advertisement with complex visual, verbal, and other nonverbal stimuli.How all of these are perceived depends on the complex interaction of internal (biological) and external (social, cultural influences) factors which also affect when and how musical taste is developed. Music is primarily a cultural and social phenomenon and reflects the values and attitudes of a subculture. Sociological forces affect images and preferences about products that are desirable, and music, if it fits with those images, may enhanc e the following variables: 1) persuasion through prior learning and verbal association, 2) recall, 3) overall ad effectiveness, Preference for the product and 5) facilitation of mental images.The following-discussion will elaborate further on the topic of music as a facilitator of mental images, and its role in advertising, education, communication, psychology, and marketing. The Importance of The Role Assigned To Music In An Ad It seems that the salience of music in an ad will depend on whether the ad is primarily affective or cognitive based (Park and Young, 1986; and Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982), who the target market is, and how well the message communication goal (meaning) of the ad will fit with the music.Consequently, we suggest a tentative hierarchy of musical presence model, to define the role assigned to music in communicating the advertising message. Basically, the degree to which music is assigned a dominant role is revealed by the degree to which it will be in the fore ground, be distinctive, will be noticed, and will be more likely to be part of an affect-based ad. The degree to which music is assigned a less dominant role is the degree to which it will recede into the background, be less distinctive, be less attention-getting, and the ad will be less likely to be affect-based.This model is based on observation of about 60 advertisements on day-time T. V. , and is presented here as way of summarizing the role music plays going from a most dominant and distinctive to a barely noticeable presence, to no presence. Since many ads have a combination of cognitive and affective components, with degrees of emphasis on one or the other, the role of music will tend to follow this degree of emphasis in the advertisement. That is, all things being equal, the more salient the role music has in the ad, the more affect-based the ad is likely to be, and We less salient role music has, the more cognitive-based the ad will be.The hierarchy of musical presence mode l is suggested as follows, going from most to least salient: A. in ads where music primarily carries the entire message and meaning, music will be used in the following ways: 1. When music with lyrics carries the ad's verbal message and meaning, it has been assigned a dominant role in also providing an atmosphere, creating an image, setting a mood, and influencing affect throughout the ad. The ad will be primarily affective-based, appealing to feelings. In this case, music will always be in the foreground, with very little voice-over, if any.Sometimes music composed especially for the purpose of the ad, or a fairly well-known song for example, such as â€Å"April in Paris† (for rich French roast coffee by Maxwell House), can be used primarily to carry the message of the ad. The use of â€Å"April in Paris† reflects the age of the target market, desire for foreign travel, and its taste in style of music; 2. When the lyrics of the song do not carry the ad's message direc tly (the words are about things other than the product and do not contribute to the atmosphere or mood), but the music is in the foreground throughout the ad, and is the primary form of communication; 3. hen instrumental or electronic music (without lyrics) is in the foreground, there is almost no voice-over, and the verbal message is brief and in written form, music has also been assigned a dominant role and will provide the above-mentioned attributes; B. in ads where the message is carried primarily by a voice-over, music is used in the following ways: 1. Music is in the background, very quiet, generally not distinctive, resembles â€Å"elevator music,† and the voice-over continues throughout the ad; 2. The music background lasts for the duration of one or two short verbal phrases, usually at the end of the ad.It is used to emphasize a phrase as in a key brand attribute, or logo; 3. No music. Although most commercials use music, some research has indicated that music may di stract from message processing, and other research supports the facilitating effect of music. While musical characteristics or elements do shape overall musical meaning, a musical selection can distract or enhance message processing, if placed in an inappropriate advertising context, where the ad's intended meaning and the music are not a good.While music may enhance processing in one setting, it may distract in another. Its impact largely depends on how well it fits with the advertisement's meaning, and the audience's level and type of ad involvement. In trying to determine what musical selection fits with what advertisement, a clear communication goal of the ad is required (cognitive, affective), along with knowledge of the intended target market's musical taste, preferences, and if possible, the meanings and feelings associated with particular musical selections.Finally, it is useful to possess an understanding of the musical characteristics or elements of the designated musical selection, as these often affect the above variables. From the musical presence hierarchy model, we note through preliminary observation that the more salient music is in an ad, the more affect-based the ad is. In general, advertising practitioners have used music which was familiar with their target market, and which fit with the ad's meaning. Note that under conditions of high cognitive involvement, music is seldom used, and when used, seldom effective.How, When, Why Music Works In Imagery Production A number of studies find that music is considered as a valid facilitator of mental images. Music also has been used as a stimulus to evoke images in educational and therapeutic settings. Music used simultaneously with words and sounds was found to increase image production. Farnsworth (1976) reports that music evokes very little universally similar mental imagery beyond what appears in all cultures, such as the use of soft melodies for mothers' lullabies.He also states that in western culture most people of the same subculture have similar imagery stimulated when presented with a descriptive narrative with specific imagery using concrete words. These words used to accompany music make for powerful, learned associations, so that when we hear the â€Å"Star Spangled Banner,† we hear the words that go with it and we all tend to have similar visual imagery. Since the same music may not evoke uniform imagery among listeners, there is uncertainty regarding whether or not high and low imagery music can be 1) agreed upon, and 2) distinguished by the type of music represented.Although the designative meaning of music is made up of individual images, thoughts, and memories associated with a particular musical piece (Meyer, 1956), and is therefore frequently individualistic, musicians have often written programmatic music with titles which encourage similar imagery. For example, Mussorgsky used pizzicato strings to represent what he labeled â€Å"chicken cluckingâ €  in his â€Å"Pictures at an Exhibition. † Advertisers of course supply â€Å"labels† with verbal statements about the product (emphasized by music) and/or lyrics of jingles.It appears that prior learning and verbal associations, when paired repeatedly with certain pieces of music, are likely to evoke more nearly uniform mental imagery among listeners. In a marketing and advertising context, imagery impacts consumers' knowledge in many important ways. Imagery systems contribute to a definition of product imagery and affect how a brand â€Å"communicates† with the consumer. Imagery is a process through which sensory information is stored in working memory.Since memory imagery involves sensory and concrete representations of ideas, feelings, and memories, it can allow a visual reconstruction of an event in one's mind which has been experienced before and stored in memory. Among the variables that can produce imagery-in an advertisement are words, imagery inst ructions, and music. Stewart, Farmer, and Stannard (forthcoming) note that in those situations where image advertising uses music, the use of a musical cue provides the opportunity to elicit images, beliefs, and associations.Their forthcoming study's results indicate that music with lyrics is statistically significant in eliciting more image types of responses referring to people, actions, or setting than verbal cues. Findings in this study suggest that the musical cue is a more sensitive measure of memory than verbal product and brand cues. Another example where imagery plays a part in the degree of fit between the music and the meaning of the advertisement is in the romantic, nostalgic song â€Å"I'll Be Seeing You. Used as background for a FTD florist ad, this song may prove effective. However, if paired with the packing up of a seasonal, everyday item like a portable fan, the effect will be somewhat comical. The organization of musical elements remain the same in the song, but the context surrounding the music has changed from a romantic, nostalgic setting (a good fit in terms of imagery) to a more mundane one. Therefore imagery of the product and the ad can be affected by the f t between musical meaning and the meaning of the ad. Music Also Affects Important Mood States.When a person enters in a restaurant, supermarket, or malls for shopping, Customers when enter in shopping malls, restaurant, or supermarkets their walking pace is fast and no product catch their eye they follow their mind set. They usually do not have in good mood due to huge traffic and unpleasant noise. Music not only slow down their pace but make their mood positive which ultimately increase the sales. Music not only enhances recall for a product or an ad through an evoked image, but it may evoke a mood, feelings, emotions, and behaviors.Consumer behavior theorists have conceptualized how consumers' attitudes, affective states, and behaviors have been impacted by moods under central a nd peripheral processing, as well as affect -and behavior conditioning. Variables Affecting Mood Moods can be affected by many different variables. Gardner (1985) discusses studies of independent variables found to induce mood states, such as weather and temperature variation, positive test feedback, finding a dime in a phone booth, winning a computer game, receiving a free gift, getting cookies, and receiving good news and bad news.Participation in activities such as smiling or frowning, reading stories, and recalling or imagining emotional experiences may also induce mood changes. In view of the fact that music is a common element in commercials, and one which has a long history of mood inducement in a variety of contexts, the next section will focus on how music has been used as an independent variable to affect moods, as well as other dependent variables of interest to marketers. For brevity, this section will highlight key studies.Details on these and other studies are in Alper t and Alpert (1990) and Bruner (forthcoming). Gorn (1982) suggests that peripheral influences such as background music used in commercials may become associated with the advertised product (in memory, even if not consciously), and influence product choice through classical conditioning. Mere exposure did not lead to liking, which apparently depended on whether the target product, a pen, was presented with liked vs. disliked music.The second experiment by Gorn (1982) provided support for his hypothesis that when subjects were not in a decision-making mode; the commercial's impact appeared to be more influential in its appeal when presented with musical background as opposed to product information. He concluded that through classical conditioning, the product becomes associated with the positive feelings of liked music. ? Commercial Business Uses of Music in Advertising Business uses of music in advertising date back to the earliest days of broadcast media.In the 1920s and 1930s, mark eters like Procter and Gamble pioneered the concept of linking brand names to distinctive musical and dramatic themes. The approach was used not only in radio ads, but also in programming that the companies developed and controlled. It was later adapted to television commercials and to the enormously popular soap operas of the 1950s. Now music is used in advertising in key formats as a useful tool to sell products. Radio Two characteristics of radio give music a particularly important role.First, the medium is entirely dependent on engaging, creative audio. Second, because most listeners tune into the radio while driving or performing other activities, music helps to focus the consumer's attention on the product. Jingles, which are original tunes composed specifically to support a certain brand, are widespread in radio advertising. They are effective in enhancing recall of the brand name and key selling points. Television and Multimedia Producers of television commercials and other forms of multimedia advertising frequently purchase licensing rights to popular music.They also hire composers and lyricists to create original music. In these media, it is important for music to complement, not compete with, the visual elements of an ad. However, songs and background tunes can be more memorable than pictures and words in establishing a mood or bringing a brand image to life. Branded Entertainment or Product Placement: Rapidly growing in popularity, this is the newest way of integrating music with a business strategy. An original entertainment product, like a music video, is created by marketers to showcase their brand.The idea is to build consumers' sense of connection to a brand by engaging them with music. Coke Studio a big Success for Coke: Music is helping Coke against its competitor Pepsi in the cola war in Pakistan. By sponsoring â€Å"Coke Studio, Coke has gained major market share at Pepsi's expense, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Coke n ow claims 35% of market share in Pakistan; Pepsi's market share is now down to 65% from a high of 80% in 1990s which was achieved mainly through sponsorship of cricket in Pakistan.Coke Studio, sponsored by Coca Cola Pakistan, is a one-hour show that features musicians playing a distinct blend of fusion music that mixes traditional and modern styles. Helped by the media boom in Pakistan, the show has had dramatic success since it was launched three years ago. Effects of Music on Shoppers and Restaurant Patrons: According to a research people who heard music while shopping or eating at a restaurant or mall is influenced by the music and it affects what they buy and what they spend.Loudness, pace, rhythm of music effects on how long consumer spends their time in malls and restaurants, how much they purchase and how they view brands or products positively or negatively. Another research shows that departmental stores which play, top 20 music on the music chart, shoppers over 25 of those departmental stores believe that they have spent more time there and purchased more. On the other hand, departmental stores which play soft instrumental music, shoppers under 25 believe that they have spent more time shopping than they have.Therefore, these findings indicate that less preferred or unfamiliar music slows down the perceived time of the shoppers. (Yalch & Spangenberg, 1990). REFERENCES http://www. queenslandnewsagents. com. au/assets/images/MusicConsumerBehaviour. pdf www. musiccog. ohio-state. edu http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Songs_in_advertising http://www. acrwebsite. org/search/view-conference-proceedings. aspx? Id=7166 suit101. com southasiainvestor. com riazhaq. com pakistanlink. org