Banner by Alisa Zhang

Music Made Me Buy It

by Maura Sackett

Picture this: you’re watching a movie and the song “In the Arms of the Angel” by Sarah McLaughlin comes on. You start to feel sad, a lump forms in your throat, and a single tear falls down your face. Why is that? Most people will associate this song with that awfully effective ASPCA commercial about animal cruelty. We have all probably seen the commercial at some point and struggle to watch it even now–fourteen years after its initial release. It is absolutely heart wrenching and so memorable that it is all we think of when we hear McLaughlin’s song. The same method of song association is used by TV shows, movies, and other, happier commercials to trigger emotions and get us to spend more money. 

Neurologically, several areas of our brains are activated when we listen to music. Our temporal lobes separately interpret the lyrics and the music in the left and right hemispheres, respectively. The frontal lobe interprets the emotional meanings while the cerebellum processes the song’s rhythm. Wernicke’s area, however, has roles in both our perception and musical imagery, which allows us to “[imagine] music without actually hearing it.”  The music in horror films that sends shivers down our spines or gives us goosebumps actually activates our amygdala. This triggers our fight-or-flight response, which explains why our heart rate increases and our palms get clammy when creepy music plays. That shot of adrenaline is what keeps us coming back for more.  

Music also releases a surge of dopamine in our nucleus accumbens. This neurotransmitter functions as a part of our reward system. Dopamine is released when individuals do things like consume chocolate, have sex, exercise, or take drugs like nicotine or cocaine. With increased dopamine levels, we increase our attention span, expand our memory, and better our mood. On the other hand, amphetamines, like cocaine, essentially flood our brains with an abundance of dopamine by blocking dopamine transporters. This causes dopamine to build up in the synapses between neurons, as it is unable to enter the neurons themselves. Some medications actually use this dopamine reuptake inhibition to treat symptoms of depression. Pleasure increases, but the risk of addiction does as well.  

While music isn’t a drug, listening to music acts as an interesting emotional primer. When we hear happy music, we tend to feel happier. When we listen to sad music, though therapeutic, we feel sadder. Doctors Logeswaran and Bhattacharya from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of London found that when participants were primed with happy music, they perceived neutral faces as happier, and when they were primed with sad music, they interpreted neutral faces as sadder.  

Music can also induce specific emotions more directly. An article in the Journal of Marketing by Dr. Gordon Bruno II, a professor at Southern Illinois University, lists certain aspects of music like tempo, pitch, or rhythm that produce specific feelings within the listener. Happy music was characterized as being fast paced, high pitched, and flowing, while sad music was softer, slower, and lower pitched. The commercials that we see on television utilize these musical differences to communicate to us consumers the specific emotion they want us to feel. While the ASPCA ad probably does not want to invoke such extreme emotion that we change the channel, they do want us to feel the sad and serious nature of animal abuse–while pulling out our wallets. With how many people pinpoint that video as one of the most effective commercials, I would say the marketing team was quite successful in using music to guide our emotions. 

Another classic example of music eliciting certain feelings is the Jaws theme song. Everyone has heard the infamous “DUN dun...DUN dun...DUN dun” and can connect it to the large, dated-special effects monstrosity. But we have probably all also used it in non-aquatic yet equally nail-biting situations like when we knew our siblings or close friends were about to get into trouble. Just two short notes have us on the edge of our seat. How crazy is that? Interestingly enough, this response was actually found to be a biological trait. Researchers discovered that “nonlinear chaotic noise” is what causes alarm when listening to ‘scary’ film scores because these noises are similar to those produced by organisms to signal fear. This was tested using baby marmots and, in a later study, humans to show that the “lack of predictability [was] hypothesized to make [nonlinear noises] difficult to habituate to.” Bruno’s article seems to agree with the concept of nonlinearity as a source of fear since he characterizes frightening music as having uneven rhythms, varied volume, and dissonant harmonies. The unpredictability of music that varies in more elements than normal seems to be what causes us to feel fearful. However, when these sounds were paired with boring videos, human participants did not find the situation as emotionally stimulating. This might explain why the louder noises are much more impactful in horror movies when they accompany a particularly scary scene.  

The perception of songs as sad or frightening, like we see in the ASPCA commercial and in Jaws, really comes down to the music’s minor mode. Mode is a “series of notes, arranged in a scale of ascending pitch, which provides the tonal substance of a song.” Changing the notes’ pitch impacts the emotions we feel during the song and, thus, during the video playing. Should marketers want their consumers to feel positive, excited, or serene, they would be better off using a major mode which reflects happier or more playful intentions. What is interesting is that commercials with music in a major mode allow consumers to feel greater “personal connections with [the] ads” and were shown to increase consumer product knowledge. On the other hand, commercials in minor modes just made consumers irritated. In movie genres like horror or tearjerkers, minor modes make us feel fearful or sad so we can also see how our emotional response to modes are context dependent as well. For example, the same ad or clip without music might not be as annoying or scary, but you probably won’t be as invested in the video or gain as much information. 

Marketing teams use this knowledge of musical variations and their impact on our emotions to make us associate their brand with happy thoughts, which in turn makes us more willing to part with our money. Shocking? I think not. Music adds aesthetic value, emphasizes certain parts of a commercial, and sends an unconscious message to viewers when it fits the ad. The emotional messages communicated by the music associate certain feelings with the brand, which impacts that brand’s perception and purchase rates. All of these aspects combined increase a consumer’s purchase motivation, which means a bigger payday for the brand. Coca-Cola ads are good examples of using popular music to make viewers feel nostalgic and happy. This ultimately leads to the brand being linked to feelings of family and friendship as we see families eating dinner or celebrating with Coca-Cola’s in their original glass bottles. 

Similarly, when we get back to shopping in stores, the background music can influence how long we are there and how much we spend on products. For example, music with a slow tempo leads supermarket shoppers and restaurant patrons to spend more time there. If you like the song broadcasted in a store and the genre fits the setting, you are more likely to return, and you might spend way more money than normal. Study participants were seen to purchase more expensive bottles of wine when listening to classical music versus the top-40 songs and French or German wine when listening to correlating French or German music. In these cases, musical priming has a real psychological impact on how consumers interact with products, brands, and their own wallets. 

As we browse more and associate products with certain attitudes, brands' social and monetary values can increase. Music in advertisements, movies, and stores are able to influence our emotions so that we feel how marketers want us to. Interestingly, this can make us want to spend more time in stores, return later on, or even spend more money. So, next time someone asks you why you bought that chia pet for 19.99 off a late night infomercial or that drink that you don’t even like, you can always just tell them that the music made you buy it.