Using known artists, pop artists brings in two key issues that damage the effect of your store sensory branding design.

1) Music from celebrity artists floods customer’s with their brand, not yours. whilst your brand may benefit from the association with their brand there are risks with this in that customers may have strong views or feelings about a song or a an artist which creates a negative feeling. Whilst creating a branded music blueprint should remove this issue having understood the artist before adding their music to your music rota, it won’t understand personal opinions of each single customer.

2) Big brands use music that comes either from well known artists to benefit from association, or use a distinctive track from an unknown artist that may then become more popular because of the association (up and coming artists dream of this opportunity to catapult them into the limelight) . Either way, if one of these tracks is used in your music playlist

So What’s The Solution?

Get music that has been designed for background, subconscious mood evoking playing.

You may worry it’s going to be ‘elivator music’ and not professional level music but things have changed a lot since the term “Muzak” was used to describe music you would expect to hear in an elevator.  Artists increasingly look to the business background music market to gain an income and more importantly, they see the benefit of not contracting the traditional performing rights societies to collect performing and composition royalties for them simply because the performing rights societies have very little knowledge if and where their music is actually being played.

The benefit to you is that you get professional music to match your brand without any brand dilution or smothering (personally I enjoy Madonna but I wouldn’t expect everyone here at Melody Pods to feel the same way).

You also get a single music license, so no need to second guess which license covers you for performance and composition for each artist, we pay our artists directly.

Hello! how can we help? Please note: our service is offered via our free Android app via the Google Play store. This can be used on Android Tablets and Smartphones. Other options available for corporate clients and resellers. 0 Please tell us how we can help.*If you have a lot of questions then please ask for a Skype call. 1 Please tell us about your business, what you sell, and describe your customer's profile:* 2 Please enter your website address here.*Your website will likely answer many of our questions. 3 Please enter your company email address:* 4 Alternatively, would you like to chat over Skype?*Please tell us your Skype name, when you will be available (and your local time zone) so we can hook up and wait for you to be available. 5 Submit 6

Whilst the health, beauty, fitness and wellness market places are growing strongly there is an increasing need for successful organizations and franchises to deepen their differentiation and competitiveness.

In the context of music you can see how organizations such as Starbucks use music to increased its differentiation by purchasing a music company dedicated to defining Starbucks choice of music played across their locations. Managing this with a team who had a deep understanding of the Startbucks brand meant Starbucks coffee shops knew there was a team who would be delivering to them the right music for their customers.

But can smaller organizations and franchises afford to purchase or hire a team to  source and master a collection of music to target their clients each month?

Well, with Melody Pods on your team you have us to think about your brand and what music works for your teams and customers. We understand it’s not just about supplying the right music but also giving your clients the opportunity to hear new music each time they enter each location. In addition, clients will have their own distinct personal choices of what music works for them that goes beyond music branding into personal choices of each client.

With Melody Pods’ new personal playlists enabled music download and player you can assign a playlist to each client you have so their choice of music is ready for them the next time they come for a treatment with their therapist.

So whilst the big guys are showing the way, with new technology and some innovative thinking smaller organizations can benefit from making music work harder for their brands compete and increase customer satisfaction.

Businesses can use music in a variety of ways to communicate and connect to their customers. Within marketing this connection with customers is focused on connecting emotionally with them to form deeper relationships that are communicated throughout the business from sales and customer service to all forms of branding.

Using music as part of your marketing and sales strategy is well known and can make significant and positive impact on your business objectives. Sound branding, the use of sound, and music to form part of your brand communications is part of a more complete set of sensory based brand assets.

Sensory branding is a concept that encompasses all the senses to connect with customers and is increasingly used within retail businesses to connect emotionally with customers. For example, one well-known story is the use of internal air circulation within supermarkets to direct the smell of newly ‘cooked’ bread to the store entrance.

Music is, of course, used by businesses in many methods of communicating with customers. The more advanced businesses have researched and designed complete sound branding concepts for their brands.

Background music forms a key part of any businesses sound branding even if they are not aware of it. Background music can be used to communicate the brand themes to a customer.

If the brand is well designed for their customers they will have an emotional connection with that music preferably not in a direct way but in a subtle, subconscious way that whilst connects it will not detract from the key messages that the business wants to convey to their customers as they enter.

Some businesses sound brand does the opposite and background music becomes foreground music. Consider a clothing retail brand for 16-25 year olds.

The music is likely to be loud and clear making is less background, and more foreground music. Its music that is aimed to impact and stimulate rather than subconsciously arouse.

The music has the same overall objective in terms of connecting emotionally but has more similarities with drama and action cinema sound tracks than the more subconscious and gentle background music.

Background music is a key part of delivering a businesses sound brand Identity. If you don’t have a sound brand identity we can help. Please use our contact form to contact us today.

Hello! how can we help? Please note: our service is offered via our free Android app via the Google Play store. This can be used on Android Tablets and Smartphones. Other options available for corporate clients and resellers. 0 Please tell us how we can help.*If you have a lot of questions then please ask for a Skype call. 1 Please tell us about your business, what you sell, and describe your customer's profile:* 2 Please enter your website address here.*Your website will likely answer many of our questions. 3 Please enter your company email address:* 4 Alternatively, would you like to chat over Skype?*Please tell us your Skype name, when you will be available (and your local time zone) so we can hook up and wait for you to be available. 5 Submit 6

If you have been following our sound branding series of articles you will already be aware that Melody Pods believes in the great potential of using the right music to support and develop your in store business objectives.

With Melody Pods not only can we supply the right music for your business and provide a regular flow of new music that matches your sound brand brief, we can also help you define and design the music identity that will drive the sourcing of music for that flow of new music to you every month.

We have defined a consultative process that is simplified to create a quick and smooth turnaround in meeting your requirements and getting a music solution to you for you to decide ……

The process is as follows:

Phase One; Design Brief

• We have an online questionnaire we ask you to invest some time to enter as much detail as you can about your business. From this we will get a great start in understanding your business, your branding, your objectives in your business locations and your customers.
• Within 24 hours we will respond with any clarification we need and confirm that we can help. We will provide you with a design brief outline, a project plan for timescales. At this point we ask for a small fee which is refundable on any order for our music services.

The output of the Design Stage: The Design Brief & Sound Band Document

• We develop a design brief that will describe the objectives of the music and how this meets your business location objectives.
• We will include a design blueprint that will provide descriptions of the music we think matches your brand and why.
• In more detail we will describe the music and what it will aim to portray about your brand to your visiting customers.
• Within the mood board we will give examples of instruments, sounds and melodies for the branded sounds and music.
• The design brief will be discussed at your convenience and any additions or changes made at this stage.

Once any iteration is completed you will need to accept this design brief.

Phase Two; Operational Planning And Pilot Music 

Once accepted we ask you to give us more detail in terms of:

• Your business operations, such as total daily working hours.
• If possible, define your customers by period of the day (e.g. morning, lunch, afternoon, evening).
• Plus any differences in the size and complexity of each business location (e.g. are some businesses focused on single selections of products or services whilst others are focused on a range of distinct and different services).
• Discuss with you any technology you will need to gain from a local supplier to support the playing of your music collections and include these items in your project plan.

Output of the Operational Plan & Pilot: The Music Delivery Project Plan

We will provide pilot collections of music with a project plan along for how to deliver the background music branding design across your business. The plan will include:

• Details of supply of pilot music collection from the design brief including details of media and distribution process,
• Recommendation for pilots process and testing against measurements for success,
• Project plan for reviews and terms for acceptance for full rollout
• measurements for success and supportive technology.

Phase Three: Full Production and Curation Of Branded Music Identity and Distribution Rollout

This is out last phase where all the careful planning and design work is finally implemented across your business. All the testing and piloting has been completed and you can now phase a rollout across your business at the speed you determine. Whilst the setting up of any technology required will be left for you to manage we will be focused on producing the first selection of collections subject to the design brief and continue to curate ready for updating your music collections regularly.

Output: Launch Your Branded Music

Collections & Associated technology to support the playing of your branded background music in each business location.

Post Project Activities

After your full roll out we will be delivering you new music as specified in the Music Delivery Project Plan on an ongoing basis. We can set up reviews or have ad-hoc discussions when ever you gain important feedback or you wish to gain new support for changing business objectives. We are always here to help.

Phase Four: Gather Feedback and Data for Reviews and Tuning the Music Collections

You will need to gather data as outlined in the pilot brief to measure the effectiveness of the music collections. In addition we will provide a questionnaire for clients to be able to use to provide feedback (offering them some incentive would be a good idea at this point). The data will be passed to you via an automated feed. At pre agreed times we can get together to discuss the data and see what it tells us about success against the objectives, and agree plans to improve and develop where needed. Additionally, regular reviews will help plan new music collections as your business evolves and meets new and developing customer tastes.

What Is Your Music Identity?

We can help. In the new year we will add our starter form for collecting details about your brand and your customers to help build your sound identity. Please fill out as much of the form below so we can begin to understand your business.

Hello! how can we help? Please note: our service is offered via our free Android app via the Google Play store. This can be used on Android Tablets and Smartphones. Other options available for corporate clients and resellers. 0 Please tell us how we can help.*If you have a lot of questions then please ask for a Skype call. 1 Please tell us about your business, what you sell, and describe your customer's profile:* 2 Please enter your website address here.*Your website will likely answer many of our questions. 3 Please enter your company email address:* 4 Alternatively, would you like to chat over Skype?*Please tell us your Skype name, when you will be available (and your local time zone) so we can hook up and wait for you to be available. 5 Submit 6