Don’t turn the music down
Music can be tricky, but advertisers should think carefully before disregarding its power for their brands, writes Mark Barber.
“Without music, life would be a mistake,” Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in Twilight of the Idols published in 1889. There’s no easy explanation of what he meant (believe me, I’ve looked) but many interpretations revolve around music as a universal language, a bonding agent that transcends cultures, connecting us emotionally and making the world feel a more bearable place. Thus spoke philosophy.
Science on the other hand suggests that music doesn’t just make life tolerable, it makes it highly pleasurable. A Canadian psychology study (Salimpoor, 2011) demonstrated how intense emotional responses to music activate ancient reward circuitry: listening to your favourite music can increase the brain’s release of dopamine by anything up to 21%, a similar increase to that triggered after cocaine use.
“These results further speak to why music can be effectively used in rituals, marketing or film to manipulate hedonistic states,” the author concluded.
It would seem that most marketers concur: in a recent survey by brand consultancy ‘Sounds Like Branding’ 97% of multinational brand managers agreed that music can strengthen a brand.
Perhaps their belief had been bolstered by seeing how in-store music affects wine purchasing behaviour (North, Hargreaves & McKendrick, 1997). This study revealed how across days when typically French music was played, French wine outsold German wine by five bottles to one. Demonstrating that this wasn’t just due to a prevailing preference for French wines, when typically German music was played, German wine outsold French wine by two bottles to one.
When the shoppers were asked to what extent the music had affected their decision, most of them replied “what music?” The music had engaged their emotions at a subconscious level and influenced their purchase behaviour without them even realising it. For good reason many people cite this study when talking about the hidden power of music.
It could also be that our multinational brand managers had read about the effects of music in advertising (Binet & Mullensiefen, Admap): how it increases attention to ads, making people more likely to recall the brand and the message, and boosting intent to purchase. Music also has been demonstrated to enhance the sales effects of advertising by between 10% and 30%.
In the recent Radiocentre study ‘Strike a Chord‘ we worked with Push London to explore how, when used consistently, music works strategically, creating presence for a brand and acting as a bonding agent between different elements of a campaign.
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In this way music becomes an incredibly effective, almost pre-conscious driver of instant brand recognition. EEG tests also revealed that ads that use music consistently are better liked and more rewarding, and show greater ‘engagement’ at a subconscious level throughout the duration of the ad.
All of the existing and new evidence gathered together points to music being an incredibly powerful multiplier for brands. Yet, with only 38% of them having a defined brand sound, the high levels of belief in music amongst the multinational brand managers surveyed isn’t converting into action. Why?
Well, music can be tricky. It’s predominantly the domain of the creatives which necessarily means it’s ring-fenced in the executional stage of the advertising process. If this wasn’t enough, people have their own strong and subjective views about what’s good; this becomes even more subjective when deciding what’s right for a brand.
In response, we created the Brand Music Navigator tool to help people discover the powerful world of music and relate it specifically to their brand. This uses semiotics to deconstruct how music communicates and gives advertisers, planners, and creatives a way of defining how specific pieces of music can be used to convey certain notions and emotions.
On the back of all the evidence that we’ve accrued it’s tempting to paraphrase Nietzsche – “Without music, advertising would be a mistake” – to highlight the hugely beneficial effects that are unexploited if music isn’t used for a brand campaign.
Of course, in the same way that not all TV campaigns need visuals to cut-through, not all great advertising needs music to be effective. But, like opting not to use pictures, dismissing music should be an active choice not a default setting. After all, do you really want your brand to miss out on the opportunity of making people feel like they’ve just taken cocaine?
Mark Barber is planning director at Radiocentre
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