The Music Factor – Project topics materials

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Music influences costumers to buy according to the beat of the music

Several researchers have talked about how music affects the perception of the atmos-phere in different places and contexts, for example Yalch and Spangenberg, (1993) say that “Many retailers and service organizations use some form of environmental music to enhance their atmosphere and influence customer behaviour.” (p.31)
In this sense, Caldwell (2002) says that “one of the more consistent findings of research into the effects of music on behaviour is that more arousing music leads individuals to carry out activities more quickly or spend less time on activities”. (p. 895). “The time relates to the desire to physically stay in or to get out of the environment. This relates to the decision to shop or not to shop at the store. It also might relate to the length of time spent in the store”. “Time is an important factor in retailing because retailers strongly believe in a simple correlation between time spent shopping and amount purchased. (Yalch, 2000, p.139)
According to this item, some theories are made in order to explain the way the beat of music influences customers. In the Service Sector, we can find authors who presented their research in this field. Some important findings from their studies are presented be-low:
 Smith and Curnow (1966) revealed that customers remain less in the stores when the music is high.
 Milliman (1982) demonstrated that music tempo affected the speed in which consumers moved around a store. Milliman (1986) later showed that the background music in restaurants affect the time customers remain into the place showing that slow tempo music leads to more time of customers in the restaurant but fast tempo music leads to less time.
 Milliman (1982) carried out research in a supermarket and reported that higher sales volume is due to slow music and lower sales volume were as-sociated with fast music, in this order of ideas customers who stay longer in a supermarket tend to buy more than those who spend less time.
Milliman (1982), made an experiment with no music, slow tempo music and fast tempo music. The nine-week study, found that the slower shoppers move through the store, the more they buy. In contrast, the faster they move through the store, the less they buy. The relation of this finding with music is that slow tempo music made customers move slower and therefore buy more while fast tempo music accelerated the customers movement making them buy less.

Music affects customers’ perceptions of the atmosphere of an estab-lishment

In sectors other than retailer shops, theories have been made about the importance of the atmosphere. For example, Wall and Berry (2007) discussed this importance in a restau-rant where he states that “although food quality is basic, the ambience and service per-formance greatly influence a customer’s evaluation of a particular establishment. Be-yond food quality, a key question in managing a restaurant is, « What is more important to customers-the behaviour of employees or the environment where they perform the service?” (p. 60).
Berry, Carbone, and Haeckel (2002) stated that there are important clues to have in ac-count “Anything that can be perceived or sensed or recognized by its absence is an ex-perience clue. Thus the product or service for sale gives off one set of clues, the physi-cal settings offer more clues, and the employees through their gestures, comments, dress and tones of voice still more clues”. (p.86)
These clues are named: Functional, mechanical and humanic clues: Functional refers to the characteristics of the food, for instance if the food was good. Mechanical refers to the intangible characteristics of a service environment such as, equipment, color, light, etc. Humanic clues consist of the behaviour of service employees, including body lan-guage, tone of voice and level of enthusiasm. (Wall et al. 2007, p. 60)
Some examples could be mentioned of some establishments that have used the music to create a brand image. “In the Hard Rock Cafe, for example, customers are surrounded by authentic rock and roll memorabilia, such as a guitar signed by John Lennon or a leather jacket worn by Elvis Presley, hung on the walls. These mechanic clues help to establish the Hard Rock brand. As a message-creating medium, the atmosphere provides discriminative stimuli to buyers that enable them to recognize a restaurant’s differences as a basis for choosing that restaurant” (Wall et al. 2007, p.61).
In the case of retailer stores, it has been demonstrated that the environment of a store gives an image of the local in general, Shama and Stafford (2000), “suggested that envi-ronment-based perceptions of a retail store can influence customers’ beliefs about the people who work there, and that nicer environments are generally associated with more credible service providers. As a result, it is expected that customers’ perceptions of me-chanic clues will be positively related to their expectations of the service.” (Cited in Wall et al., 2007, p. 62).
Additional studies have also talked about the influence of music in customer percep-tions of the shopping retailer. Baker (1994) made a study that “examines how combina-tions of specific elements in the retail store environment influence customer‟s infer-ences about merchandise and service quality and discusses the extent to which these in-ferences mediate the influence of the store environment on store image” (p.328). The author explains this theory with the figure below.

READ THE DIET OF HARBOUR PORPOISES (PHOCOENA PHOCOENA) IN THE SOUTHERN NORTH SEA: A RELATIONSHIP WITH PREY AVAILABILITY

1 Introduction
1.1 Background
1.2 Specification of the problem
1.3 Purpose
1.4 Delimitations
1.5 Thesis structure
2 Theoretical Framework
2.1 Atmosphere
2.2 The Music Factor
2.3 Summary
3 Method
3.1 Type of research
3.2 Data Collection
3.3 Trustworthiness
4 Empirical Stud
4.1 Managerial Practices
4.2 Theories
5 Analysi
5.1 Practices regarding the use of music
5.2 Theories
6 Conclusions