Let The Music Play Or Not: The Influence Of Background Music On Consumer Behavior

To understand the influence of background music on consumer behavior two studies have been presented in this article.

Study 1

If music affects the buying behavior of a customer in a real-life environment; in a Swedish home Electronics retail store. The variables of study being with music and without music over a period of 4 days and customers were given a questionnaire to fill. It was a study conducted on 150 customers of which 85 were male and 65 females with an average age of 44 years. This was conducted during the Christmas season hence the music was selected accordingly. Four hypotheses are developed for the study.

H 1. Music will affect (a) pleasure and (b) arousal.

H 2. Music will affect time spent in-store and actual spending.

H 3. Music will affect(a)general approach/avoidance behavior, (b) enjoyment with the store, (c) time experience, (d) contact with others, (e) purchase experience.

H 4. Pleasure and arousal of consumers will predict (a)general approach/avoidance behavior, (b) enjoyment with the store, (c) time experience, (d) contact with others, and(e)purchase experience.

This shows that gender has an important role in the general approach and purchase experience as female customers are more approachable in no music environment. Also, the purchases of male customers have increased in a music environment. But there is no significant change in contacting the customers. This is a direct study on customer behavior compared to the laboratory experiment conducted by Konecni.

Study II

This can be considered as an extension of the previous study with two different tempo of the music and no music as variables and during the regular shopping season, unlike the Christmas season when shopping is at peak.

The hypotheses of Study I was further developed based on the results.

H 1:2. Music tempo will affect (a) pleasure and (b) arousal, and gender will have a moderating role.

H 2:2. Music tempo will affect time spent in store, actual spending and gender will have a moderating role.

H 3:2. Music tempo will affect (a) general approach/avoidance behavior, (b) enjoyment with the store, (c) time experience, (d) contact with others, (e) purchase experience and gender will have a moderating role.

H 4:2. Pleasure and arousal of consumers will predict (a) general approach/avoidance behavior, (b) enjoyment with the store, (c) time experience, (d) contact with others, and (e) purchase experience.

This study took into account 400 subjects with 174 males and 226 females, with an average age of 49 years. As the result shows there is no considerable amount of change in arousal based on music tempo and no music.

The overall study of both experiments says that music has an influence on the most important part of the business, i. e., purchase. Given the results from the held studies, the effect of music is different for different gender/groups, hence the retailers must be aware of the kind of music that plays in the background to improve the sales and approachability and customer loyalty and satisfaction.