Lessons from music psychology for advertising and branding

Lessons from music psychology for advertising and branding

11.09.2010, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

- workshop in English -

This workshop overviews the major factors that influence emotional responses to music, and their application to marketing in retail and leisure settings. The first half of the workshop overviews emotional responses to music. We begin by considering Berlyne’s influential arousal-based theory of musical likes and dislikes, using data from the lab and from ‘real world’ settings. We also consider in detail a variation of this theory that can explain more specific emotional reactions to music. Next we consider a more recent theory, called preference for prototypes, which places much more emphasis on the associations that people have with particular pieces of music. Finally, we consider a variety of individual difference factors, such as age and personality. The second half of the lecture applies these principles of arousal and associations to the use of music in a variety of retail and leisure settings. First, we consider how arousal influences the speed of customer activity and how this in turn influences spending. Next we consider how the associations that people have with particular pieces of music can influence perceptions of the atmosphere of the premises in question, the amount that customers are prepared to spend, and the amount that they actually spend. Finally, we consider one other line of research that describes how music can influence the amount of time that customers believe they have spent waiting and the amount of time that they believe they have spent consuming a service.


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About the lecturer:

Adrian North obtained his PhD in music psychology in 1996 from the University of Leicester and subsequently joined the faculty there. He was appointed Professor of Psychology at Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh in 2007. His research concerns musical taste, the impact of music on juvenile delinquency, and the role of music in consumer behaviour. His book, The Social and Applied Psychology of Music (with David Hargreaves) was published by Oxford University Press in 2008.

Heriot Watt Applied Psychology