Music – the invisible hand of marketing
02 08 2024
Music can influence our mood. And its selection in shopping centres significantly influences customers’ decisions. Do we accept high prices more easily with classical music? Do we buy more impulsively with fast sounds? – Research on this topic is being conducted by Sylwia Makomaska, PhD, from the Institute of Musicology at the University of Warsaw.
Sylwia Makomaska, PhD, is a musicologist and political scientist at the Institute of Musicology, University of Warsaw. Her research interests focus on the psychology of music and the interdisciplinary issue of how music functions in social communication. Her research concerns current phenomena, and the results provoke a discussion on the use of background music in contemporary pragmatic and strategic forms of communication (effect-oriented), in which it is difficult to distinguish between persuasion and manipulation. It points to the extremely interesting issue of the cultural effects of acoustic pollution of public spaces and being in an environment with constant background music (e.g. the perceptual blurring of the boundary between noise, programmed music and silence in places of sale where audiomarketing is used, and the phenomenon of habituation and desensitisation). As a result of the research conducted, the popular science blog “Strefa Psychologii Muzyki” was created: www.strefapsychologiimuzyki.imuz.uw.edu.pl.
As part of the funds from Action III.3.2 “Promotion of scientific research in the public domain”, further promotion of the above-mentioned blog and related social channels (especially https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088722581490) was carried out. Articles and interviews were also prepared:
- “Invisible hand of audio marketing” on the Science in Poland website (also in Polish „Niewidzialna ręka audiomarketingu”),
- „Muzyka a wizyta w sklepie. O tym, jak dźwięki wpływają na nasze decyzje zakupowe” for Polskie Radio, Programme III – with a recording of the interview, and
- „Muzykolożka: Badam, jak muzyka steruje naszymi zakupami” on wyborcza.pl.