If you’re not obsessively thinking about the music inside your store, Activaire is. The behind-the-scenes science is impressive – as told by Adesh Deosaran, CEO and Co-Founder of Activaire.
The following comes from Activaire, a company DMN is partnered with.
It’s 7:00 AM, and I’m waiting to collect my oat latte in a dimly lit cafe in London’s Shoreditch neighborhood. I got in just moments before the rush, and as I waited, a line formed. A vintage uptempo soul song I didn’t recognize is fading out on the cafe’s bigger-than-necessary sound system.
Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” follows with its soft opening. For a moment, the energy level drops until the pre-chorus, and the three baristas belt out the lyrics, “God, what have you done? You’re a pink pony girl” in unison. Smiles and giggles emerge from the people in line.
Suddenly, we all forget that we’re dreading our commute or that 9 AM meeting we’re not ready for, and the baristas I overheard talking about snoozing a 5 AM alarm this morning are having a much better day.
The feeling I and this group of strangers shared is the magic of background music, and I’ve dedicated the last twenty-plus years of my life to making moments like this happen in thousands of business establishments.
I’m not fond of the term “background music” as it feels relatively inconsequential, which is far from true.
If you look at what happened in the cafe when Chappell Roan played, there were many consequences:
A royalty payment gets paid to the rightsholders of “Pink Pony Club.”
As a result, the people responsible for this moment of bliss are fairly compensated for making our day a bit brighter.
The cafe makes a simple but powerful statement about its brand and customer demographics.
Customers immediately know they are in a fun, youthful, inclusive, and vibrant space. Within nanoseconds of entering the cafe, “Pink Pony Club” delivers these messages about the brand. Music is the fastest way to tell a customer “you’re in the right place” while their brains assess the additional indicators like visuals, finishes, colors, and other customers. Think about the times you’ve opened a door, heard a few seconds of a song, and thought, “Hmm, this isn’t for me.”
Aside from letting customers know they’re in the right place, the music psychologically affects them and, in this case, soothes them as they wait.
We want to calm people down in a cafe setting and lighten their load, especially when waiting for their coffee order. If this were a busy retail store on a Friday evening, a more energized selection would be in order.
The baristas woke up at 5 AM to be ready to serve these customers, and music, based on their sing-along, kept them motivated on this busy morning.
Now, this last point may come as a surprise, but even though “Pink Pony Club” has over 237 million plays on Spotify, there’s still a good chance that a few customers may be listening to the song for the first time.
I can say this confidently because one of the features of my company’s product, Activaire Curator, is that it gives users the ability to submit emoji-based feedback on songs, and letting us know that a song is a new discovery is one of the choices.
I love it when users discover emerging artists through us, but it’s those times when someone hears a classic song for the first time that gets me, and it happens much more often than you think. It gives me great pleasure to know that someone heard Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” for the first time through Activaire Curator (True story).
I returned for an oat latte several more times during my stay in Shoreditch.
I like starting my day with a bit of unexpected joy and was eager to see what the following morning would bring. So there I was at 7:00 AM for my jolt of caffeine with a side of karaoke.
This time, something felt off right away. The mood was somber, the lights seemed dimmer, and everything felt sluggish. Most customers haven’t fully woken up yet. We wander into the cafe like zombies, hoping to be brought back to life.
The music is different today; “LoFi beats” softly play against the backdrop of hissing steam. The slow tempo matches my resting heart rate and keeps me in a sleepy state. The J Dilla-inspired drum patterns and Fender Rhodes melodies are all too familiar and immediately feel generic. I could be anywhere, but where I want to be is in this fun local cafe in Shoreditch, where I can feel the artsy energy of the creatives that live there. From what I can see, this specific playlist’s uninspiring monotony and facelessness are dragging me and everyone else down.
LoFi beats are actual background music. Playlists like this are great if you want a steady beat that slowly keeps pace in the background while you focus on work, but it’s 7:00 AM, and the workday hasn’t started yet.
As I whispered my order, I noticed Spotify glowing on an iPad just behind the counter. Do they know that using Spotify in a business establishment is illegal? I wonder. I assume they do, but they either refuse to pay for a licensed service or don’t feel they can trust a provider with their brand.
The consequences now are different.
They aren’t using a licensed music provider, so they risk legal action from rights holders and performance rights societies.
A licensed business music provider like Activaire includes all required licensing in its monthly subscription fee. Businesses can acquire each license needed independently, but it will cost much more annually than our fees.
Relying on their baristas to select from an infinite library designed for personal use opens the doors to an equally endless number of issues.
Today, for example, the barista selected a pre-made Spotify playlist with the word “Cafe” in the title, which led to the generic vibe I stepped into. Do they really want to sound like a generic cafe, or is there more to their brand? Judging by the thoughtful consideration of everything from the typefaces to the tile in the bathroom, it’s safe to say they are going for a distinct experience.
And what about other businesses I’ve visited where staff are playing uber-explicit Hip Hop or club bangers on a sleepy afternoon simply because that’s what they’re into that day? Every brand, no matter how small, has a unique message, and it’s one of its most vital assets. If music communicates that brand message within nanoseconds (and it does), then music should never be arbitrary.
Having worked in retail during my college years, I know how vital in-store music is in motivating staff.
I remember wanting to find the Muzak box and tearing it from the wall after hearing Jennifer Warnes’s cover of “Whole of the Moon” for the 95th time in a week at the upscale housewares store I worked in. But, 19-year-old me was deeply obsessed with Joy Division at the time, and if I had it my way, that’s what we would have been listening to.
Trust usually plays a major role in the decision to go with a provider or go rogue.
For many emerging brands, music feels too personal and meaningful to entrust to a background music provider. This hesitation is understandable. In the past few weeks, I’ve spoken with two brands that have voiced their frustration with having to hand-select every song in their in-store playlists because their providers cannot get it right.
The background music space has a bit of an identity crisis, and I believe it keeps many providers from getting the music right. The push toward technology has diverted the attention away from what really matters: music. Do our customers want a tech company or a team of people who understand how to make music an exciting part of their brand?
We’re here to create thoughtfully curated musical experiences for branded spaces, and honestly, the technology behind the music is relatively inconsequential.
Music curation is fundamental to what we do. Whether we deliver that music via cassette on a vintage Walkman or stream it over the internet, it doesn’t matter if we haven’t gotten the curation right.
In the age of algorithms and AI, where streaming numbers and follower counts can easily influence the media on offer, it’s hard not to feel like everything is starting to feel the same. I understand why many brands are wary of working with background music service providers and instead opt for doing it themselves. The tech that’s supposed to improve everything is actually making things worse, and customers are very aware of it.
This fear can quickly turn into a nightmare for store staff and customers.
I was recently browsing the racks at a major fashion retailer when I was struck by how perfect the last three tracks that played were for the brand. I complimented the salesperson on the selections, and he agreed they were spot on. He admitted that he had been hearing them for the past three years. The playlist contained just thirty songs and was curated by a DJ for the brand’s Fall/Winter campaign three years prior.
It’s hard to overlook that this 30-song playlist was so on-point that the brand would rather play it for three years than have a background music provider handle their music. The fact that I was in the shop three years later trying to discreetly Shazam one of the songs also says a lot about how powerful this selection is.
One of my KPIs for a music program is Shazamability.
Is this music going to get people thrusting their phones in the air with the Shazam APP pulsating on their screens? In 2022, Apple announced that Shazam had surpassed 70 billion song recognitions. How many of those Shazams are happening inside of businesses?
Chartmetric updates a list of the top 200 Shazamed songs every week. Sade’s 40-year-old hit “Smooth Operator” is currently locked in at 196, while Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars are number one with their new song. Last week, I heard “Smooth Operator” at a supermarket and a vintage clothing store. These musical blips we hear daily keep songs alive in our memory. A Shazam means we will listen to that song again and make it a part of our personal experience. When we associate a song with a place, we create a more robust and longer-lasting bond with that place.
Occasionally, I’ll tell someone what I do for a living, and they’ll be shocked to learn that my profession exists. “I just never thought about it.” Or, “So, you get to listen to cool music all day?” It’s much more than that, but yes, I do get to listen to really cool music. Sometimes, the challenge of music that I don’t like at all is the most rewarding. This job is less about personal taste and more about understanding how the culture of music applies to the day-to-day realities of brands and their customers.
Music curation is a multidisciplinary endeavor requiring a high level of education and fieldwork that cannot be described or planned for.
As curators, we have placed music in situations for our entire lives. We are hypersensitive to our listeners’ responses and have diligently figured out what works for them through trial and error. We are driven by discovery and cannot wait to share our new finds. We are infinitely curious about music and the people that make it, listen to it, the cultural climate from which it was born, and most importantly, how it fits into today’s world.
We know too much, and we never feel like we know enough.