Turn it all off.

• Your iPod
• Your mobile’s ring tones
• Your TV
• Your radio
• Your in-store music
• Your on-hold music
• Your computer’s speakers.

The whole shebang.

See the website here. Read more about it here

50 Things You Need To Know About Point of Sale provides some great stats and insights into marketing at the point of purchase/sale.

Most would be familiar with the role that muzak has played in the retail space (though often quite badly and with little thought).

Sound however can be used in a much more targeted and powerful way, as an attention grabber, memory trigger and differentiator in out of home (OOH) and point of sale (POS) marketing.

“Always opt for digital where available, especially if it incorporates sound and Bluetooth. Research conducted by the JC Williams Group concluded that shoppers are 5-10 times more likely to notice and recall dynamic media than static media….”
Jeff Estok, General manager sales and marketing, Global Mall Media

“Use all senses to trigger emotional impact. Emotion is the key! If your customer comes home and still talks about your brilliant and unique POS advertising you got it right. To achieve this, you should think about all human senses and how your POS campaign can stimulate the senses….”
Holger Pfeilmaier, marketing manager, LookPrint

When implementing sound in your OOH/POS it is worth considering the following:

1. Like the internet OOH is not television: Even if the delivery media is screen based. But like TV, if not implemented in a way that is sensitive to shoppers and passers by, they will switch off. We learnt that the hard way with the internet, didn’t we?
2. People hate being yelled at. OOH should invite people to engage with your brand. Whether through interactive technologies or the tone and feel of the audio content. Sonically hitting people over the head is more likely to damage your brand.
3. Technology is not the message. Content is.
4. You are not alone. OOH and POS often occurs in shared environments. Using the physical space and working together with other retailers/users will reduce the need to shout over each other and drive people away because all they are hearing is a big argument.
5. The purpose of the audio content should be clear, should support the visual content and broader communication strategy, and conform to your sonic branding guidelines.
6. Most importantly: Have fun, be adventurous and unique and evaluate, evaluate, evaluate.

Happy spruiking

I recently did a ring around to client side marketing managers, branding agencies and full service/integrated advertising agencies to find out how and why they use sound in their marketing communications.

All noted the well known fact that sound and music has an immediate and powerful impact on emotions and subsequently brand perception and consumer behaviour.
So I was very surprised to find that no-one, none, zip, zilch, zero dedicated any resources and time to monitoring the impact, continuity and implementation of sound and music across brand touch-points.

This translates to:

1. Music on hold messages that for some inexplicable reason have disappeared with out anyone realising.
2. A lack of continuity across touch points during a “campaign”. Eg: Television commercials, in-store and digital.
3. The random and inconsistent use of musical styles and voice over artists which are the consequence of “creative decisions” being dictated by content producers rather than brand values.

In short the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, resulting in

• diluted and confused messages
• negative and inconsistent brand experiences
• me-tooism that often promotes competing products and services

So what’s the solution?

Before The Campaign:
Pull together your different specialist agencies and/or integrated agency’s
departments and decide why, what and how sound will be used. And stick to it.

During The Campaign:
Conduct regular touch-point audits to make sure that every thing is still working.
Eg: music on hold, podcasts, in-store music.

Observe and evaluate the responses of customers and prospects.
If you do have to make modifications make sure they are consistent, co-ordinated across all your touch-points and still on message.

After The Campaign:
There is no “After The Campaign”.