Investigation in Music and Advertising

1. Investigation in Music and Advertising Julie Ann Salfer

2. Literary Review

3. Gerald J. Gorn Blue and beige pens Grease and classical Indian music 79% of the subjects chose the pen associated with the well-liked music His work inspired many scholars (including myself) to investigate music and advertising

4. Chris T. Allen and Thomas J. Madden Surveyed individuals instead of groups Humorous sounds bites instead of music Black and green pens Buyback feature • 25% for both unpleasant and pleasant stimuli

5. Mark F. Zander Based experiments on the idea of musical fit Radio advertisements for fake bottled water brand • Music I “lively, joyful, and easy listening” • Music II “slow, calm, and contemplative music” • Music III no music at all “Different music changes the focus of our perception without inhibiting positive reactions to a commercial when “fit” is given.”

6. James J. Kellaris, Anthony D. Cox, & Dena Cox Pretested the music used Real advertisement sandwiched in the middle of two dummy ads “When congruency is low, attention-gaining music seems to serve more as a distraction from advertising processing”

7. Kineta Hung Brazil music • Primitive • Repetitive tune Café music • Avant-garde band music • Drum beat Brazil imagery • Rainforests, Latin Americans working and drinking coffee Café imagery • Black and white, “trendy people” Message / visual / music congruency Two different types of coffee Swapped music and imagery If music was not congruent, it made it difficult for the viewer to discern what was happening in the advertisement and did not want to purchase the product

8. Expectancy-Value Model & The Appraisal Theory Attitude = Σ b1e1 + b2e2 + b3e3 + etc Cognitive Appraisal  Emotional / Attitudinal Response Action tendency

9. My Inspiration Allen and Thomas: individuals instead of groups Zander: create hypotheses about the outcome of the experiment Hung: predetermined responses and meanings of ads Hung: swapping of advertisements, music and no music

10. The Experiment

11. Method 12 in-depth interview participants Questions about • Current favorite ad and favorite childhood ad • Message retention after watching the ad either with or without music • Emotions or feelings after watching the advertisement either with or without music Two scripts were created that worked as controls for one another Six advertisements total

12. Favorite Current Advertisement

13. Favorite Childhood Advertisement

14. The Advertisements

15. Conclusions People feel uncomfortable watching advertisements without music Music does not implicitly affect whether a consumer can understand the main message of an advertisement or not Consumer’s already formed beliefs, including socialization and opinions greatly affect whether they will enjoy a commercial or want to buy a product EVM and Appraisal Theory = great indicators of an advertisement’s success Still no direct correlation between music and message retention / buying power

16. Looking back… I love working with people, and doing the interviews was a great experience The majority of people do not have a lot of experience analyzing advertisements, and many of them asked me if their answers were “okay” or “good enough”. Starting to write the thesis was the most daunting task of all But, once I got started and had a plan for what I wanted to do, it went pretty smoothly

17. Questions?