Results May Vary: Overcoming Variability in Consumer ... · Results May Vary: Overcoming...

Results May Vary: OvercomingVariability in Consumer Responseto Advertising MusicLincoln G. Craton and Geoffrey P. LantosStonehill College

Richard C. LeventhalAshford University

ABSTRACT

Although listening to music seems effortless, it actually involves many separate psychologicalmechanisms. This article describes and extends the multimechanism framework proposed by Juslinand colleagues, highlighting how the operation of psychological mechanisms leads to two generaltypes of variability in consumer response to advertising music. First, the risk of between-consumervariability (individual differences) in musical response is moderate or high for most mechanisms,and it often depends on each individual’s particular history of exposure to music (listeningbiography). Second, within-consumer variability occurs when different mechanisms have contrastingeffects, so that an individual consumer’s musical response is often mixed (e.g., guilty pleasures,bittersweet feelings, pleasurable sadness). Both types of variability can negatively impactadvertising objectives (message reception, recall, acceptance, brand attitudes, etc.). The article offerspreliminary suggestions for how marketers can use a multimechanism approach to successfullyincorporate music in commercials and reduce the risk of unanticipated consumer responses. It endswith proposals for further research. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Business is booming in the field of music percep-tion and cognition (hereafter, music cognition). Re-search activity is surging (Levitin, 2010), member-ship in the Society for Music Perception and Cognition(SMPC) is rising, and “after a long drought” (Ashley,2010, p. 205) new introductory textbooks are emerg-ing (e.g., Honing, 2009; Tan, Pfordrescher, & Harre2010; Thompson, 2015). Growing interest in the topiceven seems to be a cultural phenomenon, with booksfor lay readers such as cognitive neuroscientist DanLevitin’s (2006) This is Your Brain on Music and neu-rologist Oliver Sacks’s (2007) Musicophilia becomingbest-sellers.

Marketers may well wonder, “What is the relevanceof all this buzz for us?” What have these researcherslearned so far, and what are the implications for ad-vertisements using music? This article attempts toanswer these questions by highlighting an importantrecent development in music cognition research: the ap-plication of a multimechanism approach to explainingmusical responses (Juslin & Vastfjall, 2008; Scherer& Zentner, 2001), which are instrumental to achiev-ing advertising objectives (Middlestadt, Fishbein, &Chan, 1994; Morris & Boone, 1988; Park & Young,1986).

Scope and Goals of the Article

According to Levitin and Tirovolas (2010, p. 599),

Music cognition . . . is the scientific study of thosemental and neural operations underlying music lis-tening, music making, dancing (moving to music),and composing. It is intrinsically interdisciplinary,drawing on methods from cognitive and sensorypsychology, neuroscience, musicology, computer sci-ence, music theory, and sociocultural aspects of mu-sic, with genetics and evolutionary biology becomingincreasingly relevant. Music-processing is a complex,higher cognitive activity engaging many areas of thebrain and employing many distinct cognitive opera-tions. (emphasis added)

Taking this as a starting point, the article surveyswhat Levitin and Tirovolas (2010) refer to in the quo-tation above as the mental and neural operations thatoccur when a consumer listens to advertising music.The term “mechanisms,” which is standard in the mu-sic cognition literature, is used to denote these oper-ations. The primary goals of the article are to (1) de-scribe how these mechanisms affect consumer responseto advertising music, (2) illustrate implications of the

Psychology & Marketing, Vol. 34(1): 19–39 (January 2017)View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/mar© 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. DOI: 10.1002/mar.20971

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new multimechanism framework in music cognition foreffectively incorporating music into commercials andachieving advertising objectives, and (3) provide sug-gestions for future research.

For the sake of brevity, it was necessary to restrictthe scope of coverage. First, the article only addressesmusic listening (not music making, dancing, and com-posing). Second, it draws primarily on cognitive meth-ods used to study music listening. A cognitive approachregards advertising music as a form of communicationusing acoustic information to initiate a variety of men-tal processes that operate on this information and elicita variety of conscious experiences (Bharucha, Curtis,& Paroo, 2006). Third, the article is concerned pri-marily with recent work coming out of music cogni-tion proposing a multimechanism framework and thiswork’s implications for broadcast (TV and radio) anddigital (online and social media) advertisements incor-porating music. This approach does not seem to havebeen addressed in the most recent reviews of the mar-keting literature (e.g., Allan, 2007; Kellaris, 2008).

Two Types of Variability in MusicalResponse

Music is ubiquitous in advertisements (Allan, 2008;Marshall & Roberts, 2008). But does music alwaysenhance a commercial’s effectiveness, that is, shapeconsumer responses so as to achieve advertisingobjectives? Although this may seem to be a safe as-sumption, two of the authors have argued elsewherethat this is not always the case (Craton & Lantos,2011; Lantos & Craton, 2012). In the marketing litera-ture, this assumption has sometimes been supported(Galizio & Hendrick, 1972; Hoyer, Srivastava, &Jacoby, 1984) but often disputed (Allan, 2007; Haley,Richardson, & Baldwin, 1984; Englis & Pennell, 1994;Macklin, 1988; Sewall & Sarel, 1986). Given the im-portance of achieving desirable consumer responses toadvertising music, this article evaluates this assump-tion further by addressing two related questions: (1)“How variable is musical response between listeners(between-consumer variability)?” and (2) “How variableis musical response within a given listener (within-consumer variability)?” The more variable are con-sumer responses to ad music, the less confident adver-tisers can be in achieving their advertising goals.

Between-consumer variability refers to individ-ual differences in musical response. The tradi-tional marketing assumption—that advertising mu-sic can be favorably received by specific targetmarkets based on demographic and psychographicmarket segmentation criteria believed to correlatewith musical tastes, namely, generations, ethnic-ity, sex, lifestyle, and so on—now seems unrealis-tic (e.g., Kupfer, in press). Heterogeneity in musi-cal preferences is high and increasing within suchtargeted groups (Craton & Lantos, 2011; Lantos& Craton, 2012; Nuttal et al., 2011). Recent psy-

chometric approaches are discovering more validcorrelates of music preferences such as personality(Rentfrow, 2012; Rentfrow et al., 2012) and musicalintelligence (Krishnan, Machleit, Kellaris, Sullivan, &Aurand, 2014).

This article takes a complementary approach tothe emerging literature on correlates of musical tasteby considering the implications of particular music-processing mechanisms for between-consumer variabil-ity in musical response. Research in music cognitionreveals that some of these mechanisms may lead to in-dividual differences in musical response. For instance,although basic features of music are perceived simi-larly by all listeners, some mechanisms depend a greatdeal on that person’s “listening biography”—all of thatperson’s previous exposures to, knowledge about, andexperiences with music (Huron, 2006; Margulis, 2014).Because consumers in a given target market now havevirtually unlimited online access to the entire catalogueof recorded music, their listening biographies are likelyto differ—and, consequently, so are their responses toadvertising music.

The second kind of variability in musical responseis within-consumer variability. As two of the authorshave discussed previously (Lantos & Craton, 2012), anindividual’s response to the same piece of advertisingmusic may be very dissimilar on two different listeningoccasions. This can occur, for instance, if the listeningsituation (ongoing activities, social context, programcontent, voluntary vs. involuntary exposure) changes.This article focuses on a subtler kind of variability in anindividual’s musical response: variability that occursduring a single listening occasion. The marketing liter-ature’s tacit assumption is that a consumer’s musicalresponse is essentially uniform at any given moment—a person either likes, dislikes, or feels neutral about agiven piece of ad music (Alpert & Alpert, 1991; Birkett,2012; Holbrook & Schindler, 1989; Verstreken, 2013).Although this assumption seems intuitively reason-able, a multimechanism approach suggests otherwise.Because each mechanism can affect musical responsedifferently, an individual’s musical response is multi-faceted and often a mixture of contrasting responses.For instance, negative cognitive evaluations may occuralong with positive emotional responses (e.g., “guiltypleasures”), and emotional responses themselves maybe mixed (e.g., “bittersweet” feelings, “pleasurable sad-ness”). After reviewing mechanisms identified by mu-sic cognition researchers, the article discusses howunderstanding the simultaneous operation of thesemechanisms may help marketers assess the trade-offsinvolved in selecting advertising music.

Identifying the mental mechanisms at work whena consumer listens to ad music casts doubt on theassumption that music always enhances advertisingeffectiveness. These mechanisms produce variabilityin musical response both between and within con-sumer listeners, which may in turn result in unantic-ipated consumer responses to the entire ad that workagainst achieving advertising objectives. Nonetheless,

20 CRATON, LANTOS, AND LEVENTHALPsychology & Marketing DOI: 10.1002/mar

the article will suggest how marketers can judiciouslyselect music that may enhance—or at least, not detractfrom—their advertisements for most target audiencemembers.

Plan for the Article

The article begins by briefly reviewing the multidi-mensional musical response construct attitude towardthe advertising music (Aam) proposed by Craton andLantos (2011). It then surveys mechanisms from themusic cognition literature and illustrates how eachmechanism is likely to influence Aam, using examplesfrom actual commercials. Next, it summarizes the prac-tical implications of this work for marketers who cre-ate or select music for commercials, focusing on the twotypes of variability in musical response. Finally, it of-fers suggestions for future research.

Attitude toward the Advertising Music(Aam)

Previously, Craton and Lantos (2011) introduced a newconstruct for describing a consumer’s response to admusic, Aam. The contents of Aam are listed in the cir-cle on the right-hand side of Figure 1; the particularelements of Aam considered in this article are shownin bold. Paralleling Lutz’s (1985) definition of attitudetoward the advertisement (Aad), they defined Aam as apredisposition to respond in a favorable or unfavorablemanner to an ad’s music during a particular exposureoccasion. Aam is comprised of cognitive and affectiveelements that jointly constitute a given listener’s musi-cal response, and Aam is a significant component of onetype of mediator of advertising effectiveness—Aad—inads employing music (Lutz, MacKenzie, & Belch, 1983).

Aam is essentially what the consumer perceives,thinks, and feels in response to an ad’s music—thatis, how the consumer consciously experiences the mu-sic. As a multidimensional construct, Aam overcomes alimitation in the literature: musical appeal is usuallyonly conceptualized as a one-dimensional variable—typically “liking or disliking” (Allan, 2007). Aam spec-ifies the many ways in which musical response canvary between listeners (between-consumer variability).It also captures the richness and complexity of a singlelistener’s reaction to a musical piece, allowing for simul-taneous, contrasting cognitive and affective responses(within-consumer variability).

Survey of Mechanisms Affecting Aam

Both the between- and within-consumer variability inmusical response captured by the Aam construct canbe attributed to the fact that, whenever a consumerlistens to ad music, multiple music-processing mecha-nisms are operating concurrently (Juslin & Vastfjall,2008; Scherer, 2004; Scherer & Zentner, 2001). In

recent years, Juslin’s multimechanism approach hasprovided a particularly useful framework guiding mu-sic cognition research (Juslin, 2013; Juslin, Liljestrom,Vastfjall, & Lundqvist, 2010; Juslin & Vastfjall, 2008).For ease of exposition, the article will not repeat-edly cite these three sources; readers can assumethat descriptions of the mechanisms rely on thosepapers.

The present survey includes seven mechanisms fromJuslin’s framework, which he claims is the most com-prehensive synthesis to date in the area of emotionalresponse to music. Because the framework concernsonly emotional responses while advertisements usuallyalso generate cognitive responses, this article extendsit in two ways in order to include cognitive musical re-sponses. First, it describes how each of the seven mech-anisms can also generate cognitive responses. Second,it adds two additional cognitive mechanisms from themusic cognition literature, for a total of nine mecha-nisms (see Figure 1). While each of the proposed mech-anisms has garnered some empirical support, currentunderstanding of them varies quite a bit.

The survey describes the operation of each mech-anism with respect to four characteristics, shown inTable 1’s column headings. First, it specifies the infor-mation in the ad music that the mechanism uses toelicit a musical response. Knowing this can help mar-keters choose music that activates a particular mech-anism. The first mechanism, feature analysis, is acti-vated directly by the acoustic signal from the musicalstimulus as it reaches the ear. It allows the consumerto detect “basic features” of music—rhythm, pitch, tex-ture, and so on (see Table 2). Each of the remainingmechanisms is activated by one or more of these basicfeatures (downward arrow in Figure 1).

Second, the survey notes whether the operation ofeach mechanism is affected by consumers’ listening bi-ographies. Knowing this can help advertisers predictthe amount of between-consumer variability in musicalresponse that a mechanism causes. The more influen-tial listening biographies are in determining a mech-anism’s operation, and the more that listening biogra-phies vary within a target market, the more individualdifferences in Aam there will be for ad music eliciting themechanism. This, in turn, jeopardizes the achievementof advertising objectives.

Third, the survey identifies the particular cognitiveand affective elements of Aam most likely to be influ-enced by each mechanism, and considers the positiveand negative outcomes related to advertising objectivesthat can arise. The current treatment of cognitive re-sponses draws on various works in music cognition ascited below, while the treatment of affective responsesrelies heavily on the influential recent synthesis of the-ory and findings by Juslin and colleagues.

Fourth, the article considers the risk of eliciting in-dividual differences in musical response for each mech-anism. Mechanisms that are strongly affected by theconsumer’s listening biography (Table 1, column 3) gen-erally lead to the highest risk of individual differences

OVERCOMING VARIABILITY 21Psychology & Marketing DOI: 10.1002/mar

Figure 1. Nine music-processing mechanisms that simultaneously influence attitude toward the advertising music (Aam).

in Aam. When such individual differences exist, the jobof selecting music that helps achieve advertising objec-tives of course becomes more challenging.

Altogether, the survey below outlines nine mecha-nisms that determine Aam. For each mechanism, cov-erage begins by describing the mechanism with re-spect to each of the four characteristics noted above,

selectively reviewing relevant research. It then high-lights implications for creating or selecting advertisingmusic, providing at least one example of existing ad mu-sic to illustrate each mechanism (URLs for commercialsare not provided here since they often change, but in-terested readers can search YouTube and similar sitesfor examples).


Table 1. Nine Music-processing Mechanisms and Their Characteristics.

Mechanism

ElicitingInformation in

Ad Music

Affected byListeningBiography Elements of Aam Affected

Risk ofindividualdifferences

in Aam

Featureanalysis

Acoustic signal No Perceived (basic) features Low

Brain stemreflex

Extreme or rapidlychanging basicfeatures

No Attention to music Emotions evoked(e.g., surprise)

Emotional arousal

Low

Rhythmic en-trainment

Rhythmic features(pulse)

No Image suggestedEmotions evokedEmotional arousal

Moderate

Evaluativeconditioning

Basic features Yes Image suggestedEmotions evoked

High

Emotionrecognition

Voice-like basicfeatures

No Perceived features (emotions)Image suggested

Low

Emotionalcontagion

Voice-like basicfeatures

No Emotions evoked Moderate

Visualimagery

Basic features Yes Image suggestedEmotions evoked

High

Episodicmemory

Basic features Yes Image suggestedEmotions evokedEmotional memories activated

High

Musicalexpectancy

Basic featuresunfolding overtime

Yes Attention to musicDepth of processingImage suggestedPerceived as distinctive or notEmotions evokedEmotional arousalHedonic response

Moderate

Feature Analysis

Description. As described briefly in Table 2, featureanalysis mechanisms consist of rhythm perception,pitch perception, texture perception, streaming, featureintegration, grouping, and multimodal perception pro-cesses. Because they are very basic processes that op-erate similarly in virtually all listeners, this treatmentis quite brief. Readers wishing to learn more aboutfeature analysis should refer to the sources cited inTable 2 and to Deutsch (2013b).

Implications. Because feature analysis functionssimilarly in everyone (Brattico, Bogert, & Jacobsen,2013; Harwood, 1976; McDermott & Oxenham, 2008;Stevens & Byron, 2009), marketers can confidently as-sume that virtually all consumers will perceive the ba-sic features of a piece of advertising music similarly.With rare exceptions (e.g., Margulis, Mlsna, Uppunda,Parrish, & Wong, 2009), consumers’ listening biogra-phies do not affect feature analysis mechanisms. How-ever, the perceived basic features of music that resultfrom feature analysis are used by other mechanisms,as indicated by the downward arrow in Figure 1 anddiscussed below. Many of these other mechanisms of-ten do lead to individual differences in response.

Summary. Feature analysis operates directly on theacoustic signal from the musical stimulus as it firstreaches the ear. It is not affected by listening biogra-phy and allows the consumer to detect basic features ofthe ad music (rhythm, pitch, texture, etc.). These per-ceived basic features serve as eliciting information forthe eight other mechanisms (Table 1). The risk of in-dividual differences in response to feature analysis isvery low.

Brain Stem Reflexes

Description. The clearest example of a brain stemreflex is the auditory startle reflex (Brattico et al.,2013). Brain stem reflexes are elicited by sudden, loud,dissonant, or rapid changes in music, such as thesudden loud kettledrum stroke in Haydn’s “Surprise”Symphony No. 94 (Juslin, 2013). A brain stem reflexmight be triggered when all instruments in a loud rockband suddenly start playing following a quiet intro-duction by one instrument. When two simultaneouslyplayed pitches do not blend well, the resulting sensa-tion of “roughness” or rapid beating known as sensorydissonance (cf. Dellacherie, Roy, Hugueville, Peretz, &Samson, 2011) may also elicit a brain stem reflex. Thistype of sound characterizes the “threat” and “warning”


Table 2. Feature Analysis Mechanisms.

Mechanism Description

Rhythmperception

Detects fundamental temporal featuressuch as the beat and whether amusical piece is a march or a waltz(Honing, 2009, 2012; Justus &Bharucha, 2002; Repp, 2005, Repp &Su, 2013; Winkler, Haden, Ladinig,Sziller, & Honing, 2009)

Pitchperception

Detects how high or low a musical noteis; also, detects that high “C” and low“C” are the same pitch category, anddifferent from (high or low) “D,” forexample (Justus & Bharucha, 2002;McDermott & Oxenham, 2008;Schellenberg & Trehub, 2003)

Textureperception

Detects the distinct sounds of differentinstruments and the way those soundsare combined in the orchestration of amusical piece (McAdams, 2013)

Streaming Detects whether musical notes in aseries all belong to the “same” melodyor to separate melodic parts or“streams” in a musical piece(Bregman, 2015)

Featureintegration

Combines the features in a musicalpiece so that the listener perceiveswhat “goes with” what; e.g., asaxophone sound goes with onemelody and a piano sound goes with adifferent melody (Bregman, 2015)

Grouping Organizes musical events into largerunits with beginnings and endings;individual notes combine to formmotives (brief “melodic ideas”),motives combine to form phrases, andso on up to long sections of asymphony (Bregman, 2015; Deutsch,2013a; Narmour, 2015; Schellenberg,1997)

Multimodalperception

Detects nonmusical information (visualinformation, speech/lyrics) andcombines it with the ad music; forinstance, vision directs the consumer’sattention to visible objects that “movewith” the music (Cohen, 2013)

calls of many animals, which may be why it also signalsdanger to humans.

Brain stem reflexes are unaffected by a consumer’slistening biography and occur automatically. Althoughsudden, loud, dissonant, and rapid changes in mu-sic are not actually dangerous, brain stem reflexes donot “know” this; they respond instantly to any and allsounds with these characteristics, even when they oc-cur in music.

Brain stem reflexes influence the first cognitive fac-tor in the Aam box in Figure 1: level and persistenceof attention to music. These reflexes also influence twoof Aam’s affective elements, evoking emotions and in-creasing emotional arousal. For instance, Juslin, Har-

mat, and Eerola (2014) successfully activated brainstem reflexes and evoked self-reported surprise (emo-tion) and elevated skin conductance (a measure of emo-tional arousal) by inserting a sudden, loud chord intoan otherwise quiet excerpt of piano music.

Brain stem reflexes are thought to increase attentionand evoke emotion and emotional arousal universally.Thus, the risk of individual differences in response tobrain stem reflexes is very low. Whether the resultingemotions and arousal are ultimately interpreted pos-itively or negatively is more variable and depends onother music-processing mechanisms.

Implications. Brain stem reflexes impact advertis-ing’s ability to attract and hold attention (Hecker, 1984;Kellaris, Cox, & Cox, 1993; Macklin, 1988). Hence,many commercials open with an attention-grabbingsudden, loud, dissonant, or fast sound, such as a phoneringing, horn honking, baby crying, or peppy music,with the first few seconds being critical to getting no-ticed. This is especially important for low-involvementproducts and in cluttered TV and radio advertising podsor cluttered digital environments, whose audience of-ten is preoccupied, multitasking, and resents commer-cial interruptions. For these listeners, most informationprocessing is therefore incidental and/or accidental, notintentional, so advertisers must signal that the com-mercial is an “important” environmental event. Oth-erwise, perceptual screening and physical zipping andzapping of commercials, or grazing through them, arelikely and attention is never achieved. For music in on-line commercials—which, except for pre-roll and pop-up ads, are usually deliberately watched—stimulatingbrain reflexes is generally less important.

In general, background music that changes fre-quently throughout an ad is more likely to reduce mes-sage recall than music that changes very little (Fraser& Bradford, 2013), perhaps because it elicits brain stemreflexes that continuously draw attention to the musicand away from the advertising message. Consequently,marketers may want to trigger this mechanism only atthe beginning of their ads and to use relatively simpletunes that adhere to a basic motif and repetition of atheme.

Examples of ad music stimulating brain stem re-flexes abound. For instance, a Nike Air commercialfeaturing Michael Jordan and John McEnroe success-fully grabs consumers’ attention using the introductionto the Beatles song “Revolution”: the loud, distortedelectric guitar riff followed immediately by a signatureJohn Lennon primal scream must surely activate brainstem reflexes in any consumer within earshot. An adfor Old Spice holds attention with climactic classicalmusic: in this case, a man is seen surfing giant wavesas we hear a crescendo of thumping drums and power-ful choir and orchestra from the grand opening of theCarmina Burana cantata. The emotional arousal stem-ming from brain stem reflexes can have a positive ornegative valence (cf., Russell, 1980). To offset negativeaffect created by an off-putting startle, attention can be


maintained with music that is interpreted positively byother mechanisms discussed below—for instance, mu-sic perceived as arousing/relaxing (rhythmic entrain-ment), happy (emotional contagion), or distinctive andexciting (musical expectancy). Intuitively, the startlingsegment of the music should be a few seconds at most,so that listeners do not zap the ad. The exceptions wouldbe where the commercial is designed to evoke a sense ofdanger that the advertised product can overcome (e.g.,burglar alarms) or where emotions created such as de-lightful surprise can be confidently be predicted to bepleasant for most listeners.

Summary. Brain stem reflexes are triggered by basicmusical features that signal a potentially urgent envi-ronmental event. They are not affected by listening bi-ography, increase attention to the ad music, evoke par-ticular emotions (e.g., surprise, fear, happiness, joy, orexcitement), and heighten emotional arousal (increas-ing one’s heart and/or breathing rate), which are typicaladvertising objectives. They are a low risk for individ-ual differences in Aam.

Rhythmic Entrainment

Description. Adults (Bernardi et al., 2009; Clayton,Sager, & Will, 2005; Etzel, Johnsen, Dickerson, Tranel,& Adolphs, 2006; Fujioka, Trainor, Large, & Ross,2009; Harrer & Harrer, 1977; Khalfa, Roy, Rainville,Dalla Bella, & Peretz, 2008; Nozaradan, Peretz, Missal,& Mouraux, 2011; Nyklicek, Thayer, & van Doornen,1997) and infants (Phillips-Silver & Trainor, 2005;Zentner & Eerola, 2010) tend to synchronize eithertheir heart or breathing rate to the pulse of music. En-trainment is most likely to be triggered by music witha strong pulse or beat, particularly when this is closethe listener’s normal internal rhythms.

A cognitive effect of ad music with many instru-ments playing in synchrony with a strong pulse is thatit can suggest a powerful image in (see Figure 1) of com-munion among the performers—that is, an impressionthat the music is being performed by a cohesive, well-practiced, socially coordinated group of people (Hagen& Bryant, 2003). In addition, the changes in listeners’internal body rhythms that occur during entrainmentinvites them to join (cognitively and affectively) in thesynchrony, as audience members at a rock concert of-ten do when they get up and dance “with” the band andwith each other.

Entrainment induces general emotional arousalgradually compared to the immediate arousal responsethat occurs for brain stem reflexes. Consistent withthe suggestion above that rhythmic entrainment mayevoke the cognitive impression of communion, recentempirical work suggests that entrainment can alsoevoke a corresponding feeling of communion with oth-ers listening to the same music (Demos, Chaffin,Begosh, Daniels, & Marsh, 2012), as well as feel-ings of joy, transcendence, wonder, power, tenderness,

nostalgia, sadness, peacefulness, and tension (Labbe &Grandjean, 2014). In addition, Labbe and Grandjean(2014) found that entrainment involves both feelingone’s internal body rhythms adjust to the rhythm ofmusic and also the urge to move along with the music—to tap toes, bob the head, or dance. This urge to moveis strongly associated with enjoyment of a piece of mu-sic, a phenomenon known as perceiving “the groove”;groove can also be felt directly when listeners actuallymove in time to music (Janata, Tomic, & Haberman,2012).

Because it is present very early in development, thebasic capacity for entrainment does not seem to de-pend on an individual’s listening biography. However,two findings in the literature point to a moderate riskof individual differences stemming from the rhythmicentrainment mechanism. First, Labbe and Grandjean(2014) found that people displaying higher levels ofempathy—which may indicate their ability to inter-nally experience the movements that musicians mustmake to produce the music’s groove—report more en-trainment to music. Second, Janata et al. (2012) founda correlation between “felt groove” and accuracy in tap-ping along with music, suggesting that entrainmentand its effects may be experienced more strongly forpeople with greater rhythmic ability.

Implications. If possible, advertisers trying to arouselisteners emotionally should seek out ad music witha beat that seems to generate positive and enjoyable“groove” responses in most listeners. Given the briefnature of most commercials (typically 15 or 30 seconds,although often longer in digital environments) and therelative slowness of this musical response, it may beeffective to use music with a pulse that is close to lis-teners’ internal resting rhythms (roughly 60–100 beatsper minute for heart rate, 12–20 breaths per minutefor breathing rate). For TV, 60-second spots might bethe best candidates for this approach. Longer-form dig-ital ads might be the preferred vehicles for employingentrainment to evoke desired responses. Products affil-iated with social groups (e.g., those consumed socially,items purchased for social status, lifestyle products,etc.) might wish to employ rhythmic entrainment inorder to create a feeling of and even belief in com-munion with the social group portrayed in the ad.The involvement created by movement induced by themusic’s groove might also enhance the appeal of low-involvement products.

A perfect example of ad music that activates rhyth-mic entrainment is the 60-second “Target Style Spring2015: Groove is in the Heart” commercial, which main-tains a lively pace and a fairly heavy beat. Similarly,GMC’s “Fastball” spot from its “Precision Counts” cam-paign uses The Who’s groove-heavy “Eminence Front,”a song with a beat near the high end of the normal rangefor heartbeat, to effectively tease an increase in emo-tional arousal and create positive images and emotionsin listeners.


Since it is unclear whether entrainment will occurwithin short commercials’ time frames, marketers us-ing traditional short-form ads wishing to induce an im-age of communion, emotions, and emotional arousalmight wish to test for entrainment (as described inJanata et al., 2012) as well as for which specific emo-tions are evoked in targeted listeners.

Summary. Rhythmic entrainment occurs when listen-ers “lock in” their internal body rhythm to the music’sexternal rhythm, particularly the beat. This mecha-nism is elicited by music with a strong pulse and doesnot seem to be influenced by listening biography. En-trainment suggests communion among the performersand also evokes actual emotions such as “communion”as well as changes in emotional arousal. The risk of in-dividual differences in Aam from rhythmic entrainmentis moderate.

Evaluative Conditioning

Description. Evaluative conditioning occurs when apiece of music is consistently paired with other stim-uli and a conditioned association is formed betweenthe music, which becomes a learned or conditionedstimulus, and other stimuli, which are unconditionedstimuli. Later, when the consumer hears the samemusic under different circumstances, she experiencesher original response to the associated stimuli—evenif those stimuli are no longer present. That is, she hasbeen conditioned to respond in a particular way to themusic.

Consider a jingle regularly aired during televisedbroadcasts of football games that consequently overtime becomes strongly associated with happy, excitedfeelings experienced while enjoying watching footballwith friends. Through evaluative conditioning, the jin-gle can eventually evoke those same feelings withouta game on or friends present. Importantly, the jinglecauses the conditioned happy response even if the con-sumer is not consciously thinking about its prior asso-ciation with good times.

Evaluative conditioning explains how emotional re-sponses come to be associated with a piece of music.In contrast, the marketing literature has generallybeen more concerned with how a piece of music (e.g.,Groenland & Schoormans, 1994) or an artist (Schemer,Matthes, Wirth, & Textor, 2008) that is already likedor disliked comes to be associated with a brand. Ulti-mately, both of these processes can work together toinfluence brand choice, a phenomenon called “second-order negative conditioning.” For instance, Blair andShimp (1992) discovered that people initially exposedto music paired with an unpleasant situation later hada less favorable affective attitude toward a product thatwas presented with the music than did a control groupthat did not undergo the same conditioning.

The musical information eliciting a conditioned re-sponse is usually the entire musical piece. It also

seems likely that particular features of the originalmusic, such as the unaccompanied melody, could bythemselves elicit a conditioned response. The listeneris not consciously aware of the music’s past associ-ation with the stimuli determining the conditionedresponse.

Evaluative conditioning leads to emotional re-sponses to music. Music can also convey an image bytriggering cognitive associations in the form of ideas,concepts, or beliefs, a process sometimes referred toas “semantic association” (Fritz & Koelsch, 2008) or“knowledge activation” (North & Hargreaves, 2008).Consider again a jingle that is regularly aired dur-ing football games. In addition to the association withthe emotion of happiness from good times with friends,the jingle might stimulate thoughts about the tough-ness or competitiveness of the football players, whichthen become linked with the brand. Studies of mu-sical stereotype activation indicate that people as-sociate musical taste with certain personality traits(Rentfrow & Gosling, 2007; Rentfrow, McDonald, &Oldmeadow, 2009). Thus, one type of cognitive associ-ation that might arise is the personality of people wholike the jingle’s musical genre or style, which can beuseful in achieving the objective of crafting a partic-ular brand personality. The risk of individual differ-ences in conditioned responses to a piece of music ishigh. The cognitive and emotional associations may bequite idiosyncratic and interfere with the marketers’attempt to build desirable associations and brandimage.

Implications. Life is full of negative stimuli (baddates, lonely times, death, and loss) that may be pairedwith familiar music for some consumers. No matter howgood the copyrighted or public domain music may seemto sound, no matter how well suited to the brand themusic may seem to be, there will always be listenersfor whom the music evokes negative conditioned im-ages or emotions, or else images and emotions incon-sistent with the brand’s image. The musical responsesfrom evaluative conditioning can be quite personaland idiosyncratic due to individuals’ varying listeningbiographies.

Sometimes marketers may be able to determinewhat stimuli have been paired with the music for manytargeted consumers. For instance, for copyrighted mu-sic originally produced in conjunction with a musicvideo, it would be wise to watch the music video todetermine images that either clearly relate to a desiredbrand image or that might be potentially disturbing,annoying, or offensive to the target audience. For pub-lic domain music, certain desirable associations maybe common to many targeted consumers (e.g., “TheNational Anthem” is associated with sporting eventsand patriotic feelings and “Pop Goes the Weasel” withplaying children and nostalgic childhood memories).

The only surefire way to avoid idiosyncratic nega-tive evaluative conditioning effects for ad music is foradvertisers to create their own unique jingle or musical


score. Of course, once such an ad campaign starts, sodoes evaluative conditioning. This provides an oppor-tunity to create unique evaluative conditioning effectsvia other stimuli in the ad with which the music andbrand become associated. However, original music andthe high media frequency needed to create new asso-ciations are expensive. A less costly strategy might beto use adapted music, where the original tune is suf-ficiently modified so that the most obviously positiveassociations of the tune (such as a particular personaassociated with a particular musical genre) are keptwhile avoiding or minimizing negative evaluative con-ditioning effects.

In many cases, marketers may be reasonably confi-dent that strongly negative prior associations with spe-cific pieces of ad music will be rare. A more seriousconcern is that for certain consumers, entire genres ofmusic or particular musical artists might trigger neg-ative associations. For instance, classical music mighttrigger stereotypes of boring, stuffy, pompous people.Knowledge of particular audience characteristics suchas age, ethnicity, social class, and so on, might helphere, but generalizations are difficult to make.

As an example of evaluative conditioning at work,consider the “Coming to Your City” commercial forcollege football—a fast-paced, upbeat blend of coun-try and rock music featuring Lizzy Hale of rock groupHalestorm, a singer beloved of young male rock afi-cionados. In the ad, the music is accompanied by ex-citing vignettes of college football games and fanspartying, kicking off ESPN’s 2015 college football sea-son. An ad in an NFL campaign that worked similarlyused the “Waiting All Day for Sunday Night” themesong by Carrie Underwood covering rock legend JoanJett. The association of excitement and sociability—triggered in this case by the ad visuals as well as priorlistening experiences in the company of others—rubsoff on the NFL brand. Second-order conditioning leadsto positive emotions and raises viewers’ adrenaline lev-els in response to the NFL brand. Even when alone, afan would pick up the party atmosphere. Additionally,consumer stereotypes about the kind of person thatlikes this style of country-rock (aided by the rebelliousoutlaw image of rock stars Lizzy Hale and Joan Jett)lead to a similar musical image that transfers to thefootball brands.

Summary. Evaluative conditioning occurs when mu-sic induces a response because it has previously beenpaired with other stimuli. This mechanism is elicitedby basic features of the ad music, depends on listeningbiography, and can suggest an “image” for the musicthrough cognitive associations that can transfer to thebrand’s image. Evaluative conditioning can also inducean emotional response to the music based on the emo-tions evoked by the stimuli previously paired with themusic. The risk that evaluative conditioning can lead toindividual differences in these elements of Aam is highdue to variability in individuals’ prior music–stimulusassociations.

Emotion Recognition

Description. One can tell how a person feels by tun-ing in to acoustic features or “cues” in their tone ofvoice—whether they are speaking quickly or slowly,loudly or softly, abrasively or gently. The same cuesare present as basic features in any musical piece,and these allow listeners to perceive the emotions ex-pressed by the music (Juslin & Laukka, 2003; Juslin &Timmers, 2010). For instance, music with slow tempo,low volume, and dull timbre often seems sad; musicwith fast tempo, high volume, and sharp timbre of-ten seems happy (Juslin & Timmers, 2010, Table 17.2and Figure 17.2). The more voice-like features thatare available in the music, the more obvious the ex-pressed emotion will be. This works for both vocaland instrumental music; in fact, according to “super-expressive voice theory,” musical instruments are par-ticularly expressive because they are able to exagger-ate these vocal cues—for instance, a violin can playfaster, louder, and higher than a person can speak orsing.

The emotion recognition mechanism is relatively un-affected by a consumer’s listening biography. Becausemany of the voice-like cues that signal emotions are uni-versal, even listeners unfamiliar with music from a par-ticular culture can recognize many of the basic emotionsexpressed in its music (Balkwill & Thompson, 1999;Balkwill, Thompson, & Matsunaga, 2004; Fritz et al.,2009; Laukka, Eerola, Thingujam, Yamasaki, & Beller,2013; Thompson & Balkwill, 2010). This is one sense inwhich music truly serves as a “universal language.” Forinstance, Western listeners who are unfamiliar withIndian music nevertheless accurately perceive the in-tended emotion (joy, sadness, peace) of musical per-formances from this culture (Balkwill & Thompson,1999).

In Juslin’s and Vastfjall’s (2008) framework, emo-tion recognition is part of the emotional contagionmechanism, which produces a felt or experienced emo-tion (see below). Because emotion recognition by it-self produces cognitive effects, this article treats itseparately from the emotional contagion mechanismthat triggers felt emotions (Table 1). Emotion recog-nition allows the listener to perceive the emotion that isexpressed in a piece of music, without necessarily feel-ing or experiencing the emotion as with emotionalcontagion.

Past research on the effect of basic musical featureson perceived emotion has yielded mixed results (for re-views, see Bruner, 1990; Lantos & Craton, 2012). Un-derstanding the emotion recognition mechanism helpsto explain why this is so: specific features of music dotend to be associated with certain emotions, but thesame cue can suggest more than one emotion (e.g.,fast tempo can indicate anger or happiness), and thesame emotion can be evoked by any of several cues(e.g., happiness can be induced by fast tempo or by highpitch). A given emotion is evoked unambiguously onlywhen many features act in combination to specify it.


Current work in the area is clarifying the links betweenfeatures and perceived emotions, and this work is mak-ing new discoveries. For example, Curtis and Bharucha(2010) showed that the musical interval of a minorthird sounds sad because it is used in speech to conveysadness.

Some evidence suggests that individuals with highemotional intelligence (Resnicow, Salovey, & Repp,2004) and those with music training (Castro & Lima,2014) are somewhat better at detecting emotions in mu-sic. In addition, this ability may decrease somewhatafter young adulthood, at least for negative emotions(Castro & Lima, 2014). Despite these findings, the riskof large individual differences in Aam due to the emo-tional recognition mechanism seems quite low. It is notaffected by a consumer’s listening biography and oper-ates similarly in everyone.

Implications. By imitating the human voice, musiccan express emotion. This can be particularly usefulfor global advertising transcending cultures as emo-tions evoked by voice-like musical qualities are univer-sally recognized. A particularly clear example of theemotion recognition mechanism at work occurs in anad for Guess Jeans that uses George Harrison’s “WhileMy Guitar Gently Weeps,” a song whose lyrics and in-strumentals sound like crying. Another illustration isthe Volkswagen commercial “Feeling Carefree,” whichuses an old ‘80s song “Take on Me” by pop group A-ha. The perceived emotion evoked by the high-pitchedvocals and perky instrumentation (particularly the key-board) suggest a happy, carefree image. This nicelyserves the ad’s message of VW providing carefree, no-charge scheduled maintenance. As another example, acommercial for Honda called “Snow Is Gonna Blow,”answers the question, “What’s it feel like to get a greatdeal at Happy Honda Deals?” Michael Bolton’s vocalperformance is loud, with a forceful, insistent timbre.The driving pulse, moderate tempo, and power chordsof the instrumental accompaniment all further con-tribute to an image of deeply felt triumph. In thiscase, the effect of this passionate emotional expres-sion is intentionally humorous—after all, it is just acar!

Summary. Emotion recognition is a cognitive mecha-nism that identifies the emotions expressed in a pieceof music. It is elicited by voice-like basic features in themusic (pitch, rhythm, timbre, texture, etc.) and is rela-tively unaffected by the consumer’s listening biography.The resulting perceived features of the music—its ex-pressed emotions—can produce a cognitive effect thatleads consumers to associate the music with a partic-ular image or “personality.” Emotion recognition doesnot contribute greatly to individual differences in Aam,so that marketers may confidently exploit it to gener-ate an image that is universally suggested by the musicacross cultures and subsequently associated with thebrand.

Emotional Contagion

Description. As with a contagious illness, a consumercan in effect “catch” the emotion expressed by a pieceof music. Emotional contagion occurs when the listenerfirst recognizes the emotion expressed by a piece of mu-sic (emotion recognition) and then “mimics” it inter-nally, perhaps because brain areas involved in prepa-ration for vocalizing are automatically activated (e.g.,Koelsch, Fritz, von Cramon, Muller, & Friederici, 2006).The emotional contagion mechanism is elicited by thesame voice-like features used in emotion recognition.

Since the basic features in music that elicit emo-tional contagion are rooted in universal characteris-tics of speech, the emotional contagion mechanism—like the emotion recognition mechanism—is proba-bly unaffected by one’s listening biography. However,while a number of cross-cultural studies have demon-strated that listeners can recognize emotions expressedin unfamiliar music from other cultures (see above),there is apparently only one empirical study reportingthat listeners actually feel those expressed emotions.Egermann, Fernando, Chuen, and McAdams (2014)found that Canadian and Congolese Pygmy listenersexperience similar levels of emotional arousal based onacoustic features (tempo, pitch, and timbre) of musicalpieces from both cultures. This similarity in musicalresponse could plausibly stem from the emotional con-tagion mechanism, although it might also be due tobrain stem reflexes or rhythmic entrainment, the twoother arousal-evoking mechanisms believed to be unin-fluenced by listening biographies.

Emotional contagion can lead the listener to experi-ence a broad range of emotions, particularly “everyday”emotions that are readily expressed in speech (e.g., hap-piness, sadness, anger). Recent empirical work has suc-cessfully produced a contagion reaction of sadness whileruling out the influence of other mechanisms (Juslinet al., 2014; Juslin, Barradas, & Eerola, 2015).

The finding of similar emotional arousal responsesin Canadian and Congolese Pygmy listeners mentionedabove (Egermann et al., 2014) suggests a low risk forindividual differences from the contagion mechanism.However, subjective valence ratings were different forthe two groups of listeners and specific evoked emotionswere not measured. For this reason, the risk of individ-ual differences in musical response can tentatively beconsidered as moderate.

Implications. Advertisers creating ad music for aWestern audience can be reasonably confident that vir-tually all consumers will recognize the emotions ex-pressed and that consumers will often experience thoseemotions themselves. The likelihood of eliciting similarexperienced emotions across cultures seems somewhatlower, however.

Emotion recognition and emotional contagion havedifferent effects on Aam: emotion recognition works atthe cognitive level and suggests particular emotions


and corresponding images for ad music, while emo-tional contagion stirs up actual felt emotions in con-sumers. In this sense, contagion appears to be a morepowerful mechanism for marketing than emotion recog-nition by itself. Contagion seems to operate only whenemotion recognition first takes place, so that the emo-tions that consumers experience from contagion willalways occur along with whatever emotion or imageis first suggested by the emotion recognition mecha-nism. Thus, consumers viewing the Honda “Snow isGonna Blow” commercial—described above as trigger-ing emotion recognition mechanism—might actuallyexperience the feeling of triumph elicited by MichaelBolton’s performance along with the powerful image itevokes, enhancing the humorous appeal of the ad. TheGuess Jeans ad mentioned above is perhaps a differentstory: using “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” to sug-gest a sad, soulful image is one thing, but does Guessreally want to bum out consumers with emotional con-tagion? This illustrates the potential conflict elicitedamong mechanisms operating concurrently, with onemechanism helping the advertiser to achieve a desiredresponse but another potentially eliciting an undesiredreaction.

Summary. After emotion recognition allows a listenerto identify the expressed emotion in a musical piece,the emotional contagion mechanism may actually in-duce the emotion in the listener by causing the listenerto “mimic” the emotion internally. Emotional contagionis elicited by the same voice-like features in music thatare used in emotion recognition. For Western listeners,the research described above suggests that contagion isnot affected consumers’ listening biographies and is un-likely to contribute greatly to individual differences inAam. This is much less clear for listeners from differentcultures, and more research is warranted.

Visual imagery

Description. Not to be confused with the imageevoked by music—its cognitive associations and“personality”—a visual image is a “mental picture” thatresembles what one experiences from visual perceptionbut that occurs without a real visual stimulus. Musicappears to be particularly powerful in stimulating vi-sual imagery, although it is not yet certain what basicfeatures of music activate this mechanism.

In a recent marketing study, Fraser (2014) nicely il-lustrates how some, but not all, music-evoked images(MEIs) are influence by a consumer’s listening biog-raphy. She suggests that ad music can lead to eitherprivate MEIs that are unique to a listener, or connotedMEIs that are shared by many listeners in responseto particular features of a musical piece. She arguesthat private MEIs are unique because they are basedon the listener’s idiosyncratic memories of listening tothat piece (i.e., the person’s listening biography). In

contrast, connoted MEIs are similar for different lis-teners because they are based more directly on basicfeatures of the music. For instance, because the soundof a piccolo shares characteristics with birdsong (e.g.,quick bursts of high-pitched notes), it might trigger con-noted MEIs of birds for many listeners. Some evidencefor private MEIs can be found in the music cognitionliterature. For instance, Janata, Tomic, and Rakowski(2007) found that ratings of the vividness of visual im-agery from music were strongly correlated with the ex-tent to which the music evoked salient autobiograph-ical memories (memories of life events in someone’spast); in that study, visual images were elicited 31%of the time to music, and 25% of those were rated asvery vivid. Similarly, empirically supported examplesof connoted MEIs include imagery of upward and down-ward motion evoked by the pitch contours of a melody(Weber & Brown, 1986) and nature scenes and imagesof out-of-body experience evoked by spacey, synthesizedelectronic music (Osborne, 1989).

Visual imagery might lead to all sorts of cogni-tive associations suggesting a brand image, althoughthis has apparently not been systematically tested. Vi-sual imagery can also evoke a wide range of possibleemotions.

Regarding the risk of individual differences, somelisteners experience visual imagery frequently, whileothers do so rarely. It seems that, given the possible in-fluence of consumers’ listening biographies on imagery(Fraser, 2014; Janata et al., 2007), the risk of individ-ual differences in the content of imagery—that is, thespecific content of Aam—is high for both the image sug-gested by music and for the emotions it evokes.

Implications. Ad music may generate visual imageryand consequent effects on Aam regardless of marketers’intentions. Therefore, it seems wise to consider the pos-sible effects of this mechanism for any ad music. Fraser(2014) reported a trade-off for private versus connotedMEIs generated from ad music. Essentially, she foundevidence that private MEIs can interfere with brandmessage processing and recall, but due to their per-sonal relevance they may lead to prolonged processingthat ultimately facilitates music-cued brand messagerecall. Connoted MEIs, she argues, may not interferewith brand message processing as much but may beless effective in later music-cued recall because con-noted MEIs are not as personally meaningful as privateMEIs. Applying these results depends, of course, on be-ing able to predict which kind of imagery is likely tobe generated by ad music, which is unfortunately verydifficult.

TV and digital commercials are “multimodal”—inaddition to music, they contain visual information. In-tuitively, an ad’s engaging visual information mightinhibit MEIs. For instance, a backdrop of descendingclouds and other dynamic, surreal visual informationin Amazon Kindle’s “Fly Me Away” ad suggest the im-age of escaping in a good Kindle book. The day-dreamyAnnie Little tune in the ad’s music has a ponderous


melody that complements this message, but it seemsunlikely that it would promote any escapist visual im-agery in consumers who are already saturated with vi-sual information.

Another kind of visual information that might over-power music-evoked visual imagery is the “key frame”or “signature” shot shown on screen either for a longtime or frequently throughout the commercial, servingas the ad’s chief visual takeaway. The map used as asignature shot in Verizon Wireless’ “There’s a Map forThat” campaign may well overpower any visual imagesinduced by the ad’s moderately upbeat music, whichsounds like it was intended instead to complement thescenes of people strolling and using their phones.

The best medium for stimulating visual images frommusic might be radio, which lacks competing visuals.Radio offers an empty stage in the “theatre of the mind”for advertisers to fill with rich, brand-relevant visualimagery. As an example, a radio spot from the “Coke:Real Side of Life Campaign” features music that maypromote relaxing visual imagery in many consumers;along with the sound of rippling water and an an-nouncer describing the utter ease of floating on theocean while enjoying a Coke. The ad vividly conveys animage of Coke offering leisurely happiness in a bottle.By employing “imagery transfer,” radio advertisers canalso stimulate visual imagery based on visual elementsfrom TV commercials by using the same or a similarsoundtrack in a radio commercial. For instance, whenlisteners hear the distinctive voice of the Geiko Geckoon radio, they can visualize him from seeing him on TVads. Likewise, ad music can be a vehicle for transferringvisual imagery from TV to radio.

Summary. Visual imagery is elicited by basic featuresof the music and can be affected by a person’s listeningbiography. Visual imagery evoked by music can havethe cognitive effect of suggesting a particular imagefor the music as well as evoke a variety of emotions.Because people’s visual imagery can be idiosyncratic,this mechanism can lead to significant individual dif-ferences in Aam.

Episodic Memory

Description. The episodic memory mechanism is sim-ilar to evaluative conditioning. The primary differenceis that with evaluative conditioning listeners need notbe aware of their conditioned associations with mu-sic, whereas with episodic memory they are awarethat their music-evoked autobiographical memories(MEAMs) have been triggered by the music they arelistening to.

Research to date indicates that the episodic memorymechanism is frequently activated by actual excerptsfrom the original musical piece. For instance, Janataet al. (2007) reported that 30% of musical passages fromlisteners’ past caused MEAMs. Of the 32% of songsrated as very familiar, 62% elicited MEAMs. Future

research may determine whether particular musicalfeatures in isolation—such as the melody of a familiarsong, without instrumental accompaniment—are suffi-cient to trigger the episodic memory mechanism.

By definition, consumers’ listening biographies com-pletely determine what specific episodic memories con-sumers recall when listening to a musical piece andwhether these memories are positive or negative. How-ever, analyses of the content of MEAMs reveal somecommon themes. Janata et al. (2007) found that of thosesongs that evoked memories, 40% elicited memoriesof people (especially friends and significant others; seealso Baumgartner, 1992) or a period in one’s life (espe-cially the listener’s school when the music was heard).The most common activities remembered were dancingand driving in a car.

Memories aroused by music can have a powerful cog-nitive effect, even if they do not evoke emotions. Thememories might have connotations suggesting an im-age for the music, which can then become associatedwith the brand. A pop tune that reminds the consumerof a vacation can suggest relaxation, a Woodstock tunecan suggest peaceful rebellion, a high school hit canevoke one’s coming-of-age era, and the National An-them can suggest the first pitch of a baseball game.

The memories aroused by music can also evoke emo-tions and emotional memories (Janata et al., 2007;Juslin et al., 2014, 2015). Janata et al. (2007) foundthat MEAMs were usually associated with strongly felt,positive emotions. In their study, happiness, feelings ofyouthfulness, and nostalgia were the three most com-monly reported emotions elicited by MEAMs; the mostcommon negative emotions were sadness and loneli-ness. MEAMs may also be one reason that music isstrongly connected with listeners’ sense of self or iden-tity. Listening to music that one shared a preferencefor with “kindred spirits” might evoke feelings of prideor other self-relevant emotions (Huron, 2009).

Despite common themes in the content of MEAMs,the available evidence suggests that the risk of individ-ual differences in Aam from the episodic memory mecha-nism is quite high. Although listeners prefer the musicof their youth (Hemming, 2013; Holbrook & Schindler,1989), they vary in their overall nostalgia proneness(Schindler & Holbrook, 2003). Janata et al. (2007) re-ported considerable variability among participants inthe proportion of songs that triggered episodic mem-ories. Very few individual songs in that study consis-tently evoked an episodic memory for most listeners,and none of the songs were uniformly rated by mostlisteners as pleasing or very pleasing. Furthermore,Janata et al. (2007) concluded that “overall, any givensong elicited a wide variety of responses across par-ticipants, indicating that it would be rather difficultto identify a small fixed set of stimuli that could reli-ably evoke memories in a population of participants”(p. 856).

Implications. Ads often generate good feelings byhelping audience members recall autobiographical


experiences or by appealing to nostalgia, such as the adfor Hershey’s asking, “Remember your first Hershey’sbar?” or the Volkswagen ad cited above, which targetsGeneration X consumers using the ‘80s pop group A-ha.The 2012 Volkswagen re-launch of the Beetle uses the“Clap Back” commercial featuring the 1960s Shirley El-lis “The Clapping Song” to evoke the ‘60s heyday of theBeetle. Popular copyright-protected music, for whichcomposers own the exclusive rights, is often licensedfor commercials; advertisers believe that it is likely toelicit positive episodic memories in many consumers,especially those belonging to a particular generation.The research summarized above confirms this belief,with three important qualifications.

First, because a given piece of music can be associ-ated with vastly different episodic memories, the rangeof possible emotional responses is great—one person’shappy memory may be another person’s recollection ofa personal tragedy. Advertisers hope to play off of emo-tional positive feelings linked to events associated withmusic, but just because a pop tune was a hit does notguarantee that it will be enjoyed (this is true especiallyof overplayed music) or generate similar, positive mem-ories in all consumers. It would seem most likely toproduce similar memories for many people when asso-ciated with a commonly shared event or pop culturephenomenon. Microsoft’s unique startup tune proba-bly evokes memories of firing up the laptop at workor school for many, and the distinctive T-Mobile jin-gle might bring to mind a certain someone who oftencalls (however, both of these examples could be eitherpositive or negative experiences for any given listener).Diet Coke’s use of the Temper Trap tune “Sweet Dis-position,” from the soundtrack for a popular movie,“500 Days of Summer,” might trigger predictable sweet,warm-and-fuzzy associations with the film’s love story,even if consumers’ personal memories of viewing themovie are unpredictable.

Second, caution must be taken in deciding whetherto use music that is so popular that it is used by otherbrands, as happened when Train’s “Soul Sister” wasused by Samsung, Apple, Reebok, and others. In fact,several other advertisers also used “Sweet Disposition,”which some critics saw as overkill. Overuse could alsohasten advertising “wearout”—the case where an ad (orelements thereof) is heard so often that it is no longerattended to and might even induce negative responsesin listeners. In addition, once other advertisers startusing a musical piece, those commercials become partof consumers’ listening biographies. The advertisingmusic may now evoke memories of those other com-mercials! This problem is exacerbated if those otherads have “tainted” the music with negative emotionsor emotions incongruent with the brand image. For in-stance, the song “Arms of an Angel” may have evokedsad memories for many consumers after it was used inthe BC SPCA End Animal Cruelty campaign.

Third, when episodic memories may lead to cog-nitive processing, that interferes with ad process-ing. For instance, consumers may be flooded with

unbidden memories or struggle to remember wherethey were when they first heard a particular tune.

One interesting question for future research iswhether unfamiliar music played in a familiar styleor genre can activate episodic memories. It seems plau-sible that music in a pop style from a particular era—for instance, 1980’s hair band rock music—could evokenostalgic feelings in consumers who came of age whenthe style was popular. If so, then rather than having toacquire the rights to popular songs in order to exploitthe episodic memory mechanism, advertisers could cre-ate their own original tune in the same style. Anotherissue for future research is whether and how MEAMSelicited by ad music can be used to reinforce self-image(self-identity) and whether this can be linked to brandimage.

Summary. The episodic memory mechanism operateswhen familiar music triggers memories of the lis-tener’s life experiences associated with that music.Music-evoked autobiographical memories (MEAMs)are elicited by basic features of the music recognizedfrom one’s past listening experiences, and they dependentirely on the consumer’s listening biography. MEAMsmay have the cognitive effect of suggesting a particularimage for ad music based on the content of evoked mem-ories. Episodic memory can also evoke a wide varietyof emotions and emotional memories, notably nostal-gia. While content analyses of MEAMs reveal commonthemes such as memories of particular people or ac-tivities, differences in consumers’ listening biographiesmay lead to significant individual differences in Aam.

Musical Expectancy

Description. Musical expectancies are people’s pre-dictions about what will happen next as they listen toa piece of music. The musical expectancy mechanismforms these predictions and then generates musical re-sponses as these predictions are confirmed, delayed, ordisconfirmed (Huron, 2006; Huron & Margulis, 2010;Margulis, 2005, 2007; Meyer, 1956; Narmour, 2015;Tillmann, Bharucha, & Bigand, 2000). This mecha-nism is elicited continuously by the basic features of amusical piece as it progresses—melodic patterns leadto melodic expectancies and subsequent musical re-sponses, rhythmic patterns lead to rhythmic expectan-cies and subsequent musical responses, and so on. Forinstance, melodies typically proceed in small, ratherthan large jumps, setting up a musical expectancy. Theopening two notes of “Somewhere over the Rainbow” vi-olate this expectation the first time a listener hears thistune; the musical response to the large melodic jump upis surprise.

Influential “statistical learning” accounts proposethat most, if not all, expectations stem directlyfrom a person’s listening biography (Bharucha, 1994;Bharucha et al., 2006; Huron, 2006; Huron & Margulis,2010; Pearce & Wiggins, 2006; Tillmann et al., 2000).


However, some expectations may be innate (Narmour,2015; Schellenberg, 1997).

Although a large literature has documented lis-teners’ musical expectations (for a recent review, seeTillmann, Poulin-Charronnat, & Bigand, 2014), thereis much less direct empirical evidence documentingwhat musical responses ensue as these expectationsare confirmed, delayed, or violated. Regarding cogni-tive responses, it is proposed that musical expectancyinfluences attention, depth of processing, and the im-age suggested—in particular, how distinctive ad musicis perceived to be. If the music violates expectationsto a moderate degree, it may elicit attention, promotegreater depth of processing, suggest an image of inno-vativeness, and be perceived as distinctive and interest-ing. On the other hand, music that fails to violate mu-sical expectations at all may lose listeners’ attention,promote shallow processing, suggest an image of being“derivative,” and be perceived as undistinctive and bor-ing. Finally, music with extreme violations of expecta-tions may demand attention and promote greater depthof processing but might create an image of weirdnessor rebelliousness and be perceived to be so distinctiveas to be off-putting or distasteful.

Regarding affective responses, musical expectancyevokes certain emotions and influences emotionalarousal and hedonic response. Juslin et al. (2014)evoked listener irritation by randomly altering thenotes in a piece to make it more unconventional.Steinbeis, Koelsch, and Sloboda (2006) reported in-creases in tension and emotionality ratings for musicalexcerpts that violate expectations. Huron (2006) pro-posed that correctly predicting what will happen nextin a musical piece leads to a positive hedonic response,which he calls a “prediction effect”; incorrect predic-tions lead to a negative hedonic response. Consistentwith this, predictable music is rated as more pleasant(Koelsch, Fritz, & Schlaug, 2008), more liked (Craton,Juergens, Michalak, & Poirier, 2016), and more pos-itive and less arousing (Egermann, Pearce, Wiggins,& McAdams, 2013) than less predictable music. Otherexpectancy-based affective responses that have beenproposed but are largely untested include interest, anx-iety, surprise, thrills/chills, hope, and disappointment(Huron & Margulis, 2010; Juslin, 2013).

The risk of individual differences from the musicalexpectancy mechanism appears to be moderate. On theone hand, broad similarities in all the music from agiven culture lead to similarities in people’s listeningbiographies and, consequently, shared musical expecta-tions. On the other hand, differences between styles ofmusic between cultures and (perhaps more subtle) dif-ferences within a particular culture lead to individualdifferences in listening biographies and, consequently,musical expectations that are specific to the styles withwhich people are most familiar (Huron, 2006).

Implications. The prediction effect seems to arguefor a conservative strategy of using highly predictablemusic in order to generate positive hedonic consumer

listener responses. Marketers seem to understand thisintuitively; advertising music is rarely very adventur-ous. However, ad music that challenges consumers’ mu-sical expectations just a little bit might be better at at-tracting attention, promote more depth of processing,make it moderately distinctive and thus more memo-rable as well as perhaps creating an image of innova-tiveness.

In fact, playful violation of musical expectations hasbeen long been employed in ads. Salem cigarettes fa-mously did this in an era when tobacco companies werepermitted to run TV commercials, using the jingle “Youcan take Salem out of the country, but you can’t take thecountry out of Salem.” After airing these commercialsfor a good while, Salem employed an ad using the firsthalf of this line, ending with “but” followed by a musi-cal ping, resulting in a minor violation of expectations.This sustained consumers’ attention as they inevitablyfinished the jingle in their minds, thereby heighten-ing their message involvement. The ad projected animage of playful creativity and distinctiveness, and itlikely evoked a positive hedonic response in consumersas they confirmed their own expectations by mentallyfinishing the jingle.

A similar, more recent good-humored violation of ex-pectation occurs in a Nationwide Insurance commercialfeaturing Peyton Manning repeatedly singing the fa-mous “Nationwide Is on Your Side” tune. Each timehe repeats a stanza, he inserts unique lyrics describingwhat he is currently doing. Finally, at the ad’s con-clusion an off-camera vocalist sings the correct lyrics,which viewers have likely been playing in their headseach time Manning sings his own unique lyrics.

The VW “Feeling Carefree” commercial discussedabove playfully violates both specific expectations basedon consumers’ prior exposure to the ad song and gen-eral musical expectations based on their history of expo-sure to music. Recall that the ad abruptly breaks fromthe recording “Take on Me” to show a carefree workerabsent-mindedly singing the tune within earshot ofhis co-workers. This transition to the “new” vocalist ofcourse violates specific expectations based on memoriesof the original version. General expectations about mu-sic are also violated: pop tunes do not ordinarily tran-sition suddenly to a new unaccompanied vocalist, andthe worker is slightly flat (out of tune) when singing thesong’s climactic high note. Having aroused listeners’ at-tention, the ad presents them with the pleasantly sur-prising message that the worker’s absentmindednessis due to his carefree attitude toward car maintenance,thanks to VW’s free scheduled maintenance.

None of these examples involve extreme violations ofexpectations. Although it may seem like a risky strat-egy, music that strongly violates expectations mightremain interesting and pleasurable with repetition,thereby avoiding advertising “wearout” while achievinghigher recall due to repetition. Highly adventurous admusic would also have the virtue of being perceived asdistinctive and hence more tightly linked to the brand,and it could help craft a creative brand image.


Summary. The musical expectancy mechanism gener-ates predictions about what will happen next in a mu-sical piece and evokes either desirable or undesirableresponses when some feature of the music violates, de-lays, or confirms the listener’s predictions. Theoristsagree that the musical expectancy mechanism is con-tinually activated by basic features of a musical piece asthese unfold over time and that it is strongly influencedby a consumer’s listening biography. The responses canbe cognitive, influencing the listener’s level of attentionand suggesting a brand image, particularly whetherthe piece is perceived as distinctive and innovative.To date, however, theorists and researchers have em-phasized affective responses—especially that musicalexpectancy evokes emotions and influences emotionalarousal and hedonic response. Because many musicalexpectations are style-specific and listeners differ intheir familiarity with and preference for specific styles,there is a moderate risk of individual differences in Aam

from the musical expectancy mechanism.

CREATING AND SELECTING AD MUSICTHAT “WORKS”

The survey above has identified eight mechanisms thatcan operate simultaneously and have distinct effectson Aam (feature analysis is excluded from this list be-cause its effects are virtually identical for all listen-ers). This section offers some preliminary conclusionsfor marketers given the between- and within-consumervariability in Aam highlighted by the multimechanismframework. It then uses three examples of successfulads to show how marketers can in principle analyze admusic in terms of the music-processing mechanisms ittriggers, in order to understand and predict its effectson Aam.

Between-consumer Variability in Aam

The survey indicates that six of the eight mechanismsdetermining consumers’ response to ad music have amoderate-to-high risk of individual differences in Aam.This supports the view, defended by two of the authorselsewhere (Craton & Lantos, 2011; Lantos & Craton,2012), that individual differences in musical responseare the rule rather than the exception. Consequently,marketers should exercise caution in drawing gener-alizations regarding musical response. The best wayto anticipate variability across consumers in their re-actions to advertising music, arguably, is to know thepotential commonalities as well as variability in the tar-get audience’s listening biographies. As noted earlier,the challenge is that consumers’ listening biographiesare becoming increasingly diverse and hence difficult topredict, especially for younger consumers growing up ina more diverse musical environment.

The mechanisms whose effects on musical responsemarketers can be most confident about—that is, that

lead to the least risk of between-consumer variability—are brain stem reflexes and emotion recognition. In fact,it would appear that these are the two music-processingmechanisms that advertisers employ the most, perhapsbecause they intuitively understand that their opera-tion is fairly predictable. Regarding brain stem reflexes,sudden, loud, dissonant, and fast changes in music arecommonly used to attract and hold attention. These arealso used to evoke emotion and emotional arousal forlow-involvement products advertised in cluttered com-mercial pods and fast-paced, information-overloadeddigital environments. Concerning emotion recognition,any negative affect created by the startle elicited bybrain stem reflexes can be counteracted with positivevoice-like basic features often found in commercials,such as fast tempo, high volume, and sharp timbre tosuggest positive affect such as happiness or excitement,which is appropriate for many hedonic products.

Within-consumer Variability in Aam

The simultaneous operation of the various mechanismsleads to within-consumer variability in Aam. How muchwithin-consumer variability is there likely to be for admusic? At one hypothetical extreme, all eight music-processing mechanisms could be activated, with each ofthem leading to a distinct, contrasting response in Aam.At the other hypothetical extreme, all activated mech-anisms could have a single, uniform effect on Aam. Bothof these extremes are logically possible, but unlikely—the reality for most pieces of ad music is probably some-where between the two. Many kinds of within-consumervariability are possible; most have yet to be exploredempirically. The exception is two studies that foundthat mixed emotions were reported 13% (Gabrielsson,2010) and 11% (Juslin, Liljestrom, Laukka, Vastfjall,& Lundqvist, 2011) of the time that music evoked emo-tions in listeners. It appears that researchers have onlybegun to explore the many possible combinations of cog-nitive and affective responses in musical response thatare possible.

Intuitively, it might seem that music will best servethe ad message if it leads to unmixed responses in in-dividual listeners—provided, of course, that these re-sponses are consistent with the advertiser’s goals. Ifthis assumption is valid, then an advertiser needs tostrive for consistency among the responses elicited bythe various mechanisms that are likely to be activatedin a particular target audience. This seems like a chal-lenging task, indeed! For instance, because the emotionrecognition mechanism operates similarly for differentlisteners, marketers could successfully select a piece ofad music with voice-like features that suggest a happyimage. If the responses elicited by other mechanismsalso elicit a happy image, then the music will have suc-cessfully minimized within-consumer variability. Nev-ertheless, it seems likely that there will be some con-sumers who concurrently experience sad thoughts andfeelings—due, for instance, to idiosyncratic episodic


memories evoked by the piece. This would lead to a “bit-tersweet” feeling in those consumers, a familiar type ofmixed emotional response to music. Indeed, any of thesix mechanisms that are moderate or high risk for in-dividual differences in Aam might create undesirable,mixed responses in particular consumers.

But perhaps the assumption that uniform respond-ing is always better is invalid. Depending on their goals,marketers may in some circumstances want to em-brace the power of music to evoke rich, multifacetedresponses such as a bittersweet feeling. Another famil-iar example of mixed emotional response to music isthe paradox of “pleasurable sadness”— people usuallyavoid experiences that cause sadness, but they oftenenjoy sad music. This can be understood and exploitedby marketers as a situation in which one mechanism,such as emotional contagion, evokes sadness while an-other mechanism, perhaps musical expectancy, simul-taneously evokes a positive hedonic response. The song“Arms of an Angel” is quite effective in evoking sadnessin the listener, perhaps because of its vocal characteris-tics (emotional contagion); however, for many listenersit is also enjoyable, perhaps because it is familiar, sim-ple, and predictable in a way that confirms listeners’musical expectations (musical expectancy). The plea-surable sadness it evokes in many listeners makes it abrilliant choice for the BC SPCA “End Animal Cruelty”campaign (despite the misgivings expressed earlier indiscussing the episodic memory mechanism).

Given the reality of low-involvement listeners in thecase of most ad music and the difficulties of selectingmusic that is much enjoyed by all listeners, the mostpromising strategy may be to grab and sustain con-sumers’ attention with music that is irresistibly catchy.Marketers may be willing to settle for a mixed musicalresponse in which their ad music is experienced as a“guilty pleasure,” a type of mixed response in which amechanism such as rhythmic entrainment leads to apositive hedonic response, perhaps from a catchy beat,but musical expectancy simultaneously suggests thatthe music is not at all distinctive but rather predictable.

Predicting Aam through MechanismAnalysis

From the perspective presented in this article, a reason-able first step in predicting targeted consumers’ Aam isto analyze the mechanisms that will be elicited by admusic and the impact of each on the cognitive and af-fective Aam components. As an example of effective admusic, consider the MINI Coupe TV commercial “Sun-day in Rio” from the 2011 “Another Day, Another Ad-venture” campaign portraying the new MINI Coupeas the ideal companion for every adventure. In thisspot for the sporty two-seater, the driving fun and ad-venture of the car are displayed as a man picks upand drives a native through Rio de Janeiro’s festivecarnival atmosphere while a high-energy, percussivesamba plays in the background. Seven seconds into the

60-second spot, screeching tires followed by the suddenonset of carnival music might trigger brain stem reflexeseliciting attention and perhaps increasing emotionalarousal. Rhythmic entrainment from the groove-heavyfunk/samba music builds throughout the ad, contribut-ing to the feeling of shared festivity and increasingemotional arousal. As always, it is difficult to predictthe effects of the evaluative conditioning and episodicmemory mechanisms because advertisers are not privyto consumers’ unique listening biographies. However,because many consumers have been exposed to fre-quent repetition of this commercial, the samba musicmay trigger prior associations (evaluative conditioning)and memories (episodic memory) of adventure and ex-citement based on prior exposure to the ad. Emotionalrecognition and emotional contagion from the raucous,exuberant horns and percussion suggest an image of,and perhaps feelings of, joy and abandon as the car ca-reens through the city streets—a true carnival thrillride! The ad visuals are powerful and perhaps inhibitvisual imagery, although it is possible that consumersproduce their own festive imagery reinforcing the visu-als. Whenever there is ad music, the musical expectancymechanism is at work (Huron, 2006); here, listenerswill expect the festival dance groove to continue un-abated and will experience the pleasant positive he-donic response that comes from this prediction beingconfirmed. As discussed above, marketers can be mostcertain of musical responses due to brain stem reflexand emotion recognition; the predicted responses to theother three mechanisms are more tenuous. This type ofmultimechanism analysis can be done for any ad con-taining music.

Another TV ad successfully incorporating music isBaileys’ “Pour Spectacular.” The musical “splash” atthe beginning, as an ice cube is seen from above splash-ing into a glass of Baileys, could trigger brain stemreflexes that draw attention and induce arousal. Rhyth-mic entrainment and its positive effects are likelyas the slightly upbeat music, with its busy groove-oriented instrumentation, continues. However, if thefeatured ‘80s pop-rock tune “Rapture” by Blondie hasnegative associations for some listeners (perhaps “Rap-ture” was played at someone’s horrible ‘80s prom ex-perience), evaluative conditioning and episodic mem-ory could work against these other mechanisms. Theway the vocals slowly slide around suggests dreamyrelaxation through emotion recognition and perhaps vi-sual imagery, and this may even evoke those feelingsthrough emotional contagion—all complementing thepowerful ad visual images of silk-clad women trans-forming into silky-smooth Baileys. For consumers fa-miliar with the song, musical expectancy will lead to apositive hedonic response as predictions are confirmed.At the same time, the tune has unusual features thatprovide moderate violations of expectations even uponrepeated listening: the melody jumps around distinc-tively and breaks into a rap halfway through the ad, af-ter which a rock guitar solo—somewhat unexpected fora club/dance tune—crescendos before Debbie Harry’s


smooth vocals return and fade, singing “rapture . . . ”Here again, advertisers can be most confident of theresults predicted by brain stem reflexes and emotionalrecognition.

A final example comes from successful use of rapmusic in an Evian “Water Babies” TV ad. The anal-ysis in this case is restricted to evaluative condition-ing, in order to make a point about music stereotypes.The juxtaposition of rap and visuals of cute rollerblad-ing babies in this ad is irresistibly funny. It wouldseem that it is not just the cuteness of the babiesthat carries the day. The ad succeeds brilliantly be-cause, through evaluative conditioning, the music ac-tivates cognitive stereotypes of tough, urban rappers.Even avid rap-haters must surely find this contrastamusing!

Although the above examples of mechanism analy-sis are post hoc, they suggest that predicting consumermusical response based on the mechanisms at workmay be fruitful—but always, at least at this point, ten-tative. They also make it clear that even for successfulad music, the assumption that some musical stimulihave near-universal appeal and so can be incorporatedinto ads without risking a negative consumer responseis difficult to defend. In even the best cases, there islikely to be a lot of within- and between-consumer vari-ability in consumer responses to ad music. Marketerscan be most confident about musical responses frombrain stem reflexes and emotion recognition, largelybecause these mechanisms are relatively unaffected byconsumers’ listening biographies.

Advertisers already use many of the ideas aboveintuitively. However, intuition alone is rarely ajustifiable or optimal basis for business decision-making. While case studies are certainly useful (e.g.,Jackson, Jankovich, & Sheinkop, 2013), a multimecha-nism framework appears to offer a promising new toolfor making practical decision-making more systematicthan either intuition or anecdote.

DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

The multimechanism framework in this article, and itsapplication to ad music, is intended not as a fully devel-oped theory of consumer musical response but rather asan organizing framework to help marketers understandand predict consumer musical response and to help re-searchers develop hypotheses for future research. Al-though the selective review of the literature providedpoints to steady progress in the field, much remains tobe investigated before advertisers can confidently im-plement the multimechanism framework.

A reasonable practical approach for marketers isto analyze the musical content of ads in terms of theeight music-processing mechanisms, in order to flushout the many possible combinations of effects on Aam

within and between individuals. In contrast, however,researchers seeking to advance our understanding ofthe effects of particular mechanisms will need to be de-

velop methods for isolating them experimentally. Thiscould be accomplished by creating musical stimuli thattrigger only one mechanism at a time, perhaps by creat-ing a “standard” or baseline musical stimulus which isthen edited in various ways to target particular mecha-nisms. For instance, inserting a loud noise in the middleof the musical stimulus could target brain stem reflexes.Presenting the same melody as played by a musicianon an expressive, voice-like instrument such as a vi-olin, may trigger the emotion recognition and emotioncontagion mechanisms—at least more than a computer-generated keyboard would. Researchers could use bothself-report and physiological measures to see if thesemanipulations have effects that would be predicted bythe multimechanism account reviewed above. If theydo, then these stimuli could be incorporated into ex-periments testing that test response to advertisementsemploying relevant marketing measures such as Aam,Aad, message reception, recall, acceptance, brand atti-tudes, and so on.

A related approach that researchers might take isto focus on the causes of negative musical response, aphenomenon that advertisers typically hope to avoid(Craton & Lantos, 2011). Hypothetically, any particu-lar music-processing mechanism might elicit negativeAam in some listeners. Researchers could isolate mecha-nisms as described above as a way of discovering exactlywhat features of ad music are off-putting to consumerlisteners and determining what the particular negativeeffects are.

To date, the marketing literature on the effectsof ad music has tended to focus on finding directlinks between basic features of music, such as tempo,and consumer response (Allan, 2007; Bruner, 1990;Kellaris, 2008). This strategy falls short of explainingwhy particular musical responses occur and, in particu-lar, why both between- and within-consumer variabilityin musical response occur. Recent work on psychomet-ric correlates of musical preferences such as personality(Rentfrow, 2012; Rentfrow et al., 2012) and musical in-telligence (Krishnan et al., 2014) promise to be part ofthe explanation; however, whether these correlates canbe linked to responses to ads with music remains un-clear (e.g., Kupfer, in press). As a complement to the“micro” level of basic musical features and the “macro”level of psychometric and demographic variables, themultimechanism framework offers to a middle-level ofanalysis that identifies a range of underlying music-processing mechanisms influencing musical response.This framework merits further empirical investigationusing advertising music to better inform marketers andresearchers alike on the whys of consumer response toad music.

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Correspondence regarding this article should be sent to:Lincoln G. Craton, Stonehill College, 320 Washington St., Eas-ton, MA 02357, (508) 565-1486 ([email protected]).


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