Listen to an advertising spot accompanied by jazz music, swing or classicalproduces adifferent emotional reaction to the advertised brandand about the person who sends the message. These are the main conclusions of a study by the University of the Basque Country published in 2011, which analyzes the effect of memories and emotional reactions caused by music in advertising content.
“Our study corroborates that the insertion of different melodies in the ad, appropriate and congruent with the message and the brand, but different in style – change of tempo and tone – generate different impressions, both of the communicator and the brand,” he explained to the Agency to SINC Patrick Hartmann, researcher at the University of the Basque Country and co-author of the study he publishedAfrican Journal of Business Management. To reach this conclusion, a survey was carried out among a random sample of 540 Spanish consumers (between 15 and 65 years old) who were exposed to a series of radio advertisements for a fictitious mineral water brand, specifically designed for research.
The survey results measured the perception towards the communicator of the ad, the generation of emotional reactions and the attitude towards the brand (“global evaluation” and “intention to buy”) from listening. “There were four experimental advertisements, one without music and three with musical accompaniment, with identical text and with a fictitious name. All four were recorded on Cadena Ser and each subject was exposed to only one of the versions,” explains Hartmann .
The selected music did not contain lyrics – so that the text would not interfere with the evocation of memories – and was chosen after several group sessions with experts from an advertising agency. Finally, two of the musical versions (not known to the public) were created specifically for advertisements and a third version (of known music) wasWhat a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong.
In order to know the associative link “melody-brand”, once the survey was completed, the subjects were exposed to listening to the three experimental advertisements with music. The results show thatthe first piece of music heard is quickly learned and memorizedand it is the one that the majority (73.3%) consider most appropriate for the advertisement and the brand.
On the other hand, the musical style also affects the impressions about the person who sends the message in the ad. “According to the concept of” musical adequacy “, the subjects who listened to the version with music in a major key and faster tempo rated the communicator as more cheerful, restless, nervous, impatient, jovial, sporty, enthusiastic and daring, in compared to the second musical version. ” On the contrary, “individuals exposed to a version with a lower key and slower tempo perceived the communicator as more calm, relaxed, patient, delicate, understanding, disciplined, mature and more confident”, says the expert.
