Emotional conditioning through music: How sweet tunes entice you to spend your cash

Have you ever wondered why there is background music in stores? Does music perhaps influence our buying behavior?

Well, it’s obvious that music can make you feel a certain way; it make you happy, sad, dreamy, angry…These feelings can create a certain response to the advertised product, both in a good or bad way. For example, when I think of the brand Hollister it makes me feel bubbly and summery because I think of the happy summer vibes playlists in their stores and their summer clothes. This phenomenon is referred to as emotional conditioning and describes process in which marketeers link their brand to an emotional response.

An old yet well-known example of an implementation of this strategy in the marketing field comes from Daimler Chrysler. In 2004, he paid Céline Dion a certain amount of money in exchange for her song in his ‘I Drove All Night’-campaign. Daimler made sure that the song of the singer, Céline Dion, was frequently linked to the brand. This way, the feelings that were generated by the song would also be transferred to Chrysler (one of the ‘Big Three’ automobile manufactures in the U.S).

So, let us return to the main point of this blog, emotional conditioning. It is important that the music in a store matches your perception of the brand or store. A good match can have a positive influence on your attitude and can result in a purchase intention. When music arouses positive feelings, it develops a positive attitude towards the product, brand or shop. A positive attitude automatically makes you like the product, while a negative attitude makes you obviously dislike it. When you finally like something, you tend to make more arguments in favor of the product than arguments against the purchase; we’ve all done this before, haven’t we?