The sound of success: why retail and hospitality brands need a compelling audio experience
When developing a brand identity, a company’s vision and values are transformed into visual elements, colours, fonts, messaging, and more – all of which are vital in bringing the brand to life.
Retail and hospitality brands aim to create an immersive brand experience for consumers. Visual elements play a key role here too. This translates into sleek store and restaurant designs, a mood conveyed through either vibrant or soft lighting, and eye-catching displays.
With all these different elements, music is often overlooked in this process, even though it can be an important part of the brand identity toolkit. Through sound, retail and hospitality brands can differentiate themselves, build brand loyalty, and drive more sales. The right music can make consumers more receptive to the brand and more likely to linger, explore, and ultimately, spend more.
Not carefully considering audio as part of your brand kit means you could miss out on a personal way to connect with customers and build a loyal community. Music plays a crucial role in how people perceive and connect with brands.
At RetailWave Technologies, we know all about this. Retail and hospitality brands need a compelling audio experience, because of the psychological effect of sound: sound influences emotions and behaviour.
The psychology of sound
How sound influences emotions and behaviour
Sound has a profound impact on customer experience (Soundtrack research report). Playing a carefully curated playlist through quality hardware can transport customers to a new emotional state.
While most of us realise this instinctively, sound is often an afterthought in retail and hospitality settings. Many businesses settle for generic playlists or neglect their audio environments, missing out on a powerful opportunity to create a great sound experience.
Music curation
Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can leave the curation of your playlist to your in-store employees.
Research shows employees tend to select higher-energy playlists, even skipping slower songs within those playlists. They also play music at a higher volume than what shoppers prefer.
A matter of preference? No, it’s so much more than that. Playing music that fits the brand can lead to a 6% greater sales revenue.
The impact of the restaurant playlist
And the impact of sound is not just limited to stores.
Soundtrack and HUI Research have done the world’s biggest study on the effects of music in commercial settings. The customer study focused on a well-known restaurant chain and researched the effects of on-brand music, random hits, and silence in eight high-traffic locations. In total, they analysed 1.8 million purchases across 16 restaurants over five months.
The researchers compared sales when on-brand playlists with well-known songs were played against playlists containing a mix of tracks.
The results speak for themselves:
9.1% more sales were recorded when the researchers played music that matched the brand than when they played randomly selected popular songs.
They recorded 15.6% more dessert sales when an on-brand playlist was used.
They saw a 4.3% drop in sales when random hits were played compared to not playing any music.
In other words, it’s better to play no music at all than to play music that doesn’t fit your brand.
Quality sound hardware
Once the right playlist has been selected, the quality of the audio can make or break the sound experience. It is important to produce sound that reaches every corner of the room and is distributed evenly with consistent quality.
The unique, patented speaker technology distributes the sound efficiently across 360. As a result, 40% fewer individual speakers are needed to produce a superior sound quality.
RetailWave audio solutions
The RetailWave Technologies’ highly specialised wireless audio loudspeakers distribute the sound over 360° creating a constant and homogeneous sound. The unique, patented speaker technology distributes the sound efficiently. As a result, you can use 40% fewer individual speakers to produce a superior sound quality, saving on both technology costs and installation time.
Paired up with the SMARTplayer, the audio source is connected wirelessly to the loudspeakers. If there is a greater distance between the music source and the loudspeakers, we have the SMARTstreamer to bridge the gap. This is useful when the music source is located in the server room in the basement, for example. The SMARTstreamer distributes the audio signal in the local network to one or more SMARTplayers.
Seamless Music Curation with Soundtrack your brand
To support our customers every step of the way, RetailWave Technologies has partnered up with Soundtrack your brand, a Spotify-backed company. Their software cloud solution offers full control over both audio solutions through an easy-to-use app. With a hundred million songs available, you can create your own playlists, or use one of the many available playlists curated for you. For optimal control, you can activate an explicit lyrics filter, and you are able to block songs you don’t want to hear (again). As a final step, you can drag and drop the curated playlists into your calendar, to meet your business hours and allow for adjustments during rush hour or just before closing.
The combination of quality sound technology and on-brand playlists will create an immersive experience for your customers and reinforce your brand identity.
Investing in both exceptional audio technology and expertly curated music is not a luxury but a fundamental component of a truly successful and memorable brand presence. WIth RetailWave Technologies, you can harness the full potential of sound, ensuring your brand resonates long after customers leave the premises.
