First of all, I love FACT magazine. Definitely one of the most interesting magazines in the U.K.

The latest issue is not impressed with the UK clothes retail chain TopShop and NME the (once iconic) music magazine.

Louise Brailey spotted a recent TopMan Window display with three mannequins in the window, each representing a different ‘indie’ style. To help the indie fans chose the right ‘look’, TopShop have also provided three photos of an indie ‘hero’. The three are Pete Doherty, The Kooks and Noel Fielding (a UK comedian it seems). Lots possibly wrong with this (can’t they do better than Pete Doherty or Noel Fielding).

And she is right to draw attention to how brands can get it wrong when they appropriate music for commercial purposes.

However, not everyone has the confidence to chose their own look. Many of us have always wanted help. Once upon a time album covers, Music shows on TV and spectacular imagery in magazines such as NME and Sounds would help give pointers to people in terms of how to create their own look. The fact that some people turn to shop windows for inspiration is not in itself such a bad thing.

Louise is most put out that the NME has put it’s name to this, selling it’s soul in the process. Fair point, if NME is still the great voice of counter-culture music. Yet it is not and hasn’t been for years. Anything more than one paragraph on any chosen topic seems a bit much for the NME these days. Great music journalists of today (and there are some fantastic ones out there) would be unlikely to find comfort in writing for NME. Photos of a night out or pretty people at a festival seems to take priority over decent music journalism.

One note of caution though for FACT.  FACT:25 carries two  Advertisement Features, one on Shoreditch getting free Wi-Fi thanks to BT and FON and the other for the excellent Red Bull Academy. At first, both features come across as a piece of editorial, yet in the top corner of each piece, a very small header ‘advertisement feature’ is written. A little confusing. Let’s hope that things are made a little more clearer to their readers in the future!

So have Starbucks given up on music or are they just refocusing their attention?

When it was announced this week that they were to pull out of their record label Hear Music and hand over this business to their partners the Concord Music Group, an obvious reaction was ‘So what went wrong?’

This news was further compounded when it was announced that the entertainment division was to be put under control of the Chief Technology Officer Chris Bruzzo…geeks in charge of creative development? Surely this means that the whole Hear Music exercise has been a failure?

Well, it hasn’t been a failure in my view. For many of the classic artists, it has worked. First Ray Charles sells over 5million units. Paul McCartney sold more than he could have imagined. Meanwhile, Hear Music tempted Joni Mitchell to record again - which in my book is worth the whole exercise in itself. It also started to offer an alternative distribution and marketing solution for many other artists like the immensely talented and underrated Sia.

Has it been a success for Starbucks customers? Well, from a sonic retail perspective, Starbucks can teach many other retailers how to think about the effect of sound on a consumer’s experience in-store (See posts passim).

Starbucks have a head start on other brands in terms of understanding the power of music in the consumer’s connection with their business. Yet, the news clearly suggests that all is not well at Starbucks. So what can we make of the changes?

Shifting away from CD to digital is good business sense, though making the assumption that the CD is completely dead for the Starbucks consumer is a huge one. There are over 6000 options of coffee in Starbucks, so having a choice of formats for the music - “CD or download madam?” - is not a bad idea.

The bigger challenge for the new head of the entertainment division is how to ensure that the experience in-store is not undermined by this move. The danger is that a shift to digital entertainment will leave the coffee-house experience somewhat muted.

One hopes that Starbucks does not retreat, turn it’s music commitment into yet another music download site and forget that sonic branding is felt most of all by their customers in-store. They may be right to consider promoting books in-store (in fact this makes immense sense), yet the power of music could be better harnessed by brands, Starbucks included.

A thought for Starbucks:
Ever thought about getting local artists to play in-store, so supporting local art, giving something fresh to the customers and positioning yourself as the ‘local coffee house’ at the same time? It means acting small, not acting big.

In the citizensound sonicRetail survey, we found a few stores decided on a policy of a music-free zone in–store.

Shops such as Church’s shoes had the sound of people talking and shoes being squeezed on to feet, nothing more. And this worked for the environment and the clientele. A sense of calm away from the storm of the street.

The Apple Store on Regent Street London is also music free, which given the connection between Apple and music, this seems shocking. However, Apple might rationalise this decision by seeing each person as controllers of their own music destiny (via their iPod of course). So a store that tries to dictate and decide what the customer should hear is not a store that respects that customer. However, my issue with the Apple Store is that in this music-free zone, music is generally heard…not through the store PA system, but through far-off speakers linked to Apple products. People test out iPod speakers or listen to songs on laptops. So the sound throughout the store is of far off tinny music.

Meanwhile the O2 in-store had the music so low that you could hardly hear it. Given the immense commitment to music by O2, this again seems like a contradiction. I would expect the in-store sonic experience to be stunning in any O2 store. Sadly, this is far from the truth.   Which leads to another issue…

citizensound says:

If you think music has a role in store then for goodness sake have it loud enough to do its' work and invest in a decent soundsystem. 

Mango stores are the sonic version of vanilla ice cream. After a while you are yearning for mint choc chip, raspberry, peach or mango even…anything but  vanilla…I have to ask the question – what is the point of having music in store if the music is so bland? It got me thinking…

If Mango was a band, who would it be? And then it dawned on me…Mango is the fashion version of Westlife.

Westlife have sold loads of albums, have a huge following, but are not known for innovation and creativity. They get on their stools, then get off them and sing covers, get back on their stools, then sell lots of CDs. A brilliant and successful model that works. So, Mango as Westlife is not a bad thing, IF Mango wanted that image. But this is NOT Mango. When I lived in Barcelona in the 90s, Mango was not a covers band. It was not white suits and the boy your mother would like. Mango had credibility. It had edge. Yet it also had accessibility. Right now in their stores, it just feels much like a lot of other stores…

Una nota para MANGO:Por favor Senores y Senoras de Mango, es possible a cambiar vuestra estrategia de musica en las tiendas – estoy seguro que hay musica que puede connectar mejor con los consumadores. No estais Westlife, eres mas cool que ellos.

In our first post on the sound of the brand at retail, citizensound mentioned the lack of investment that seems to go into sound within the retail space.

This comes in part from a marketing focus on the visual when it comes to financial commitment. The sense of sight dominates marketing decisions – the logo; the packaging design; the Retail window display; the Point of Sale materials; the storyboard for the next ad – all highly visual. This makes sense given the power of the visual to connect with our subconscious. However, the human being is a sensory beast, not purely a visual one. The sense of smell, of taste and of touch have immense power on human behaviour, yet are still highly under-utilised in marketing – likewise with the sense of sound. Many retailers know that music has a role to play in the in-store environment, but it seems to have been relegated to a line on a spreadsheet that gets ticked or a figure that is cut every year.

In many of the stores citizensound visited, the little thought put into the sonic experience suggests that the sourcing of music has been given to companies who provide the cheapest service of homogenised nonsense, rather than carefully chosen music that resonates with the brand and the consumers. For some companies, I can imagine that music sourcing has been left purely in the hands of those looking to reduce costs rather than build brand. However, it is also probable that music is just not seen as a priority, so marketing budgets are channelled to the Visual, while the other Senses get neglected.

Gap has used music imagery in their communication successfully before and have created innovative music links such as Madonna/Missy Elliott. So to find poor sound quality and bland music in their stores was hugely disappointing sonically.

On the other hand, HSBC have invested in their own radio station. As you wait for an appointment with a business account person, you can kick back and listen to HSBC’s in-house radio station. Playing a balance of music that works for the company, HSBC have DJs playing a safe playlist with dedications to local store staff, and promotions of new products for customers. All the staff said they enjoyed it, whilst customers were shaking their ankles. This made more sense than Gap.

Who would have thought HSBC could teach Gap about music and customers?

citizensound says:

If you are listening GAP, please please sort out your stores – you and your customers deserve better…

The magazine Media & Marketing ran a few features on Brands and Music in their February issue that are worth a read, including some thoughts from citizensound. Also published within the magazine was an article I wrote on the sound of retail environments.

citizensound carried out an extensive survey at the end of 2007 early 2008 in London and Paris on the sound of (physical) retail. We checked out nearly 100 stores in the two cities to see (or rather hear) whether brands have fully leveraged the power of sound at retail.

Unfortunately, the results were not positive. A few companies had developed an outstanding approach to creating soundscapes that added to the shopping experience. Paul Smith had brilliantly fused music selection with each collection throughout the store, thus combining the senses as people explored the shop. However, this is the exception rather than the rule.

Music is often dictated by store staff for their own enjoyment, rather than what will connect with consumers. I walked into four different mobile phone stores and the music was interchangeable RnB. The staff were happy but the consumers were not all RnB fans.

If you are going to be in the store all day helping customers, then great music can help the day go by. Let’s be honest, time can drag if you are faced with either few customers or ones that don’t want to talk to you. So the sound of the store needs to also be motivational for the staff as much as for the customers. Which leads me to Top Shop / Top Man.

Here is a store that smartly fuses fashion with music through the layout of the store and the collections themselves. Bands could/do walk in, pick the look as laid out in the store,

So you would think that the store would be bang on the money when it comes to the music played in store. Wrong!

The music sounded fresh, very ‘indie/new wave’. However, when we asked two staff members about the music, we were met with strong responses. Both staff said the music is organised by main office (one thought that Q magazine was also involved) and that the same music had been playing in store for four months straight, same tape, same loop for four months! Also the same music is chosen for Top Shop and Top Man, so little by way of any gender segmentation analysis going on here. For the sanity of the staff, you have to hope this has been changed and that a more rapid changeover of music is happening in store. Just as the Top Shop collections are inspired by designer labels, so can they also gain from bespoke approach to sonic retail by Paul Smith.

citizensound says:

The balance between music for staff and music for consumers is a tricky one. However, getting it right can lead to an environment where the staff and consumer both enjoy their surroundings. This has to be the goal. It is a shame that so many stores fail to recognise this.So many reasons why, but one is money.

More on this subject in Rant 2 on Sonic Retail.