(Shared) meaning in the strategy of audiomarketing – theory and practice

Background in musicology. The concept that music’s meanings are inseparable from the cultural and social contexts and circumstances in which they arise has become widely accepted on the ground of musicological studies. Music tends to be treated as a social phenomenon and therefore its meanings can only be explained by analysis of the processes and conditions that pertain to the contexts within which music is produced and received. Background in consumer behaviour and communication studies. This approach seems to be especially significant in analysing the strategies, characteristic for contemporary culture dominated by media, in which the sender uses (imposed) background music to elicit predictable recipients’ responses and behaviour. One of the most interesting examples is the presence of programmed music in commercial environments in which music becomes a modern marketing tool within activities determined as audiomarketing. Aims. The main aim of the paper is to answer the questions how and why programmed music intentionally treated by the sender as an “acoustic wallpaper” (understood as an acoustic background, not engaging the focal attention of the listener) can become a shared meaning transmitter within the strategy of audiomarketing. Main contribution. The paper is based on the assumption that music can be an effective implicit communicator, transmitting specific meanings on a group level to achieve the goals intended by the sender. The comparison of theoretical and practical aspects of audiomarketing reveals the varied functions of the linkages between musical structure (on macro and micro levels) and possible meanings. The theoretical marketing model of “servicescape” and the model of communication proposed by Lasswell are the starting points for the analysis of audiomarketing practice. General assumptions of music programming (presented on the example of the key Polish audiomarketing service provider) are discussed in the context of a hierarchical model of musical semantics. The overall analysis reveals the multilevel structure of music programming in the strategy of audiomarketing. In terms of shared meanings transmission it highlights the significant role of knowledge activation effects of in-store music and its possibility to activate superordinate knowledge structure which can mediate customers’ behaviour. This process concerns the ability of music to prime certain thoughts and a network of associations which individual listeners have built up over their listening experience and which can be shared by large groups of people. Implications. The proposed interdisciplinary approach gives a chance to analyse the phenomenon of audiomarketing from the sender’s perspective in a possibly multidimensional way. The presented research shows, however, that it is necessary to expand the perspective with the reception models, because they take into account the problem of differences in the interpretation of the same phenomena by individual recipients.