Retailers Fine-Tune Store Music to Reflect Brand, Make You Want to Shop

The Wall Street Journal:

It is the factor that can keep shoppers happily browsing in the store for hours—or drive them out the door in a huff.

Retailers are fine-tuning their stores’ playlists as they wake up to the power of music to communicate a brand message and put shoppers in the mood to spend. One shopper’s favorite song can make another shopper cringe.

Big chains turn to specialists like Mood Media, based in Austin, Texas, and PlayNetwork, in Redmond, Wash., to design store playlists that match the values and design aesthetic of the brand and the lifestyle of its shoppers. Retailers might offer specific descriptions of their core customers and suggest specific artists and songs.

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Shopping to music prompts the release of dopamine, delivers a sense of pleasure and helps focus attention, said Daniel J. Levitin, a professor of psychology and behavioral neuroscience who runs the Laboratory for Music Cognition, Perception and Expertise at McGill University, Montreal. “This could lead to putting people in a generous mood,” he said.

Read the whole story: The Wall Street Journal