Shopping (Feat. Music)

Last weekend, I went over to Missoula to take care of some unfinished business. As I headed over, I blasted my music and took in the views. Just past Butte, I looked up into the mountains and noticed a few snow-capped peaks. This obviously brought back many memories of skiing and got me excited for the upcoming season. But it also made me react in another way. It made me want to enhance the experience. I switched from listening to a playlist of mixed genres to my skiing playlist. This made the memories come even more clearly. I could picture a time when I'd heard the current song while skiing. I could feel the skis on my feet gliding over the soft, packed snow, I could feel the cold, white clouds powder envelope my entire existence while I carved through the trees, and I could feel the the earth below me disappear as I sprung off of a rock. At the time, I was just in a mood. But after thinking about it, I find it fascinating that I could so vividly remember these experiences, solely because of the song that I was listening to when experiencing the activity.

If music can bring back such vivid memories, could this be used to sell products? Supermarkets often play music to entice their customers. It was found that slow music will make customers move the supermarket more slowly, and beyond that, they tend to spend more. Fast paced music tends to make customers move through the store more quickly, but does so without reducing sales when compared to a market with no music playing (http://www.businessinsider.com/effects-of-music-on-sales-2011-7?op=1). 

My thought was: What if supermarkets tailored their music towards the season that was upcoming? I'm not talking about Christmas music or Will Smith stay in school songs, but songs that people tend to listen to during that upcoming season, songs that would bring back memories of cracking a cold one after a long bike ride. Songs that remind you of road trips with your friends. Songs that force you to recollect a joyous experience in your past. Many of these experiences may sub-consciously put you in the buying mood.

This is a very edgy area with many variables however, and would prove to be very difficult to perfect. The music scene in stores currently could be at it's peak with little room for improvement. But imagine if different supermarkets were directed towards different age groups and lifestyles, similar to how the Good Food Store is directed towards vegans/ those trying to live a healthy lifestyle. If there was a store in Bozeman that played multi-genre modern music, and was designed as space to attract college students, would you prefer to shop there, or would you shop at a Safeway, or Albertson's given they have similar pricing. Similarly, would someone in the middle of their life prefer to shop at a supermarket that played songs from when they were younger?

As I mentioned earlier, this could be a tough area to explore. One issue could be that a song brings up a bad memory. For instance, a buddy of mine was listening to Freaks and Geeks by Childish Gambino when his brother fell asleep at the wheel. He too was sleeping at the time, and was abruptly awakened by the vehicle careening off of the interstate at 80mph. Thankfully, neither of the occupants of the car were injured. All the same, that was a terrifying experience for him, and anytime that the song comes on, whether its in his car, or anyone else's, the song is changed within seconds of it's start. Situations like that could easily decrease sales, not only in that moment, but now that consumer has a bad experience with that store and may never go back.

Do you have any thoughts about this?