Music is just a pleasant way to spend free time for some people. For others, it is indispensable to daily activities, and for a certain percentage of the population, music is life itself. Regardless of the group we belong to, music affects our lives in many ways – some are obvious while others are invisible. We listen to loud music to wake up and cheer ourselves up in the morning. Pieces of music in movies augment our feelings and make us feel more involved. Recent studies have shown that music also changes our spending habits and affects our shopping decisions.
The magic of the rhythm – effects of the tempo
Since a long time ago, we have known that the tempo of the music – that is, the beats per second – correlates with our feelings. We can find examples of this fact from hundreds of years ago. The famous funeral march, composed by Chopin in the 19th Century, is a slow piece that arouses feelings of sadness and lament. On the other hand, the wedding march makes us feel joyful. Even someone who is not literate in music can instantly tell the mood difference between the two pieces.
Researchers conducted experiments to evaluate the effects of changing the tempo of the music on consumer behaviors. They made the subjects listen to the same part of the music with different rhythms and asked them to fill out a questionnaire about their buying intentions. When the music was fast, the consumers were more aroused and expressed increased motivation to buy. Contrarily, they were less willing to spend money when they were listening to the same piece of music but with a downbeat tempo. This experiment explains why we hear cheerful music playing in the background in many shopping malls. The music is usually fast and pleasant – nudging us to spend more!
Feeling exquisite in a restaurant
Another study assessed the spending habits of patrons in a restaurant and tried to determine if the genre of music affected how much they spent. They found out that the musical style playing in the background did affect how much the patrons spent. When classical or jazz music was playing, they were prepared to spend the most money on their meal. On the other hand, they spent less when easy listening was playing. The absence of music also led them to spend less money. These findings explain why classical or jazz music is playing in the background in many high-end restaurants.
Advertisements’ background music
The music plays when we are doing the critical spending and also in the advertisements. Researchers made the participants watch a commercial with and without music in an experiment and assessed their emotional responses. When they watched a sports commercial with background music added, they were more willing to buy than the version with only narration and without any music. The participants said they felt more energetic when the commercial had the music and would buy the advertised product.
They also measured the participants’ brain waves in this experiment. When the music was playing, there was increased neuronal activity in the frontal lobes of their brains. The frontal lobe is strongly associated with human emotions. Increased activity in this part of the brain supports the idea that music regulates and changes our emotions. Also, when the background music is playing, we are more attentive to the commercial. We might even direct our attention to a specific commercial when we hear a particular type of music, even if the commercial is irrelevant to us, and we would ignore it if not for the music.
These studies are critical because they show our tendencies to be affected by external stimuli. We could unknowingly buy more items in a shopping mall simply because upbeat music is playing, and we could choose a more expensive dish in a fancy restaurant because we hear Vivaldi in the background. As human beings, we are prone to following these kinds of prompts. Being more aware of this simple fact can help us make more informed decisions when we are spending our money.
Dr. Egehan Salepci
References
Kellaris, James J & Kent, Robert J 1991 ‘Exploring Tempo and Modality Effects, on Consumer Responses to Music’ ACR North American Advances NA-18
Wilson, Stephanie 2016 ‘The Effect of Music on Perceived Atmosphere and Purchase Intentions in a Restaurant:’ http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0305735603031001327 31/1:93–112
Uhm, Jun Phil et al. 2021 ‘Effect of background music and hierarchy-of-effects in watching women’s running shoes advertisements’ International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship