Background Music at the POS

Background Music at the Point of Sale in Austria – acceptance caused by lifestyle fit

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Herbert Bruhn, University of Flensburg, Germany

Abstract

In 2009 research had been conducted on the perception of different kinds of music warehouses and shops. The study had been a project of the Austrian company for the copyrights of composers, the AKM. The organisation of the study, which included 350 customers and 38 employees at five different shops or warehouses, was guided by the Donau-Universität in Krems (Gerhard Gensch), design of the study and the statistics came from Herbert Bruhn (Flensburg, Hamburg). The Over all results convey a wide acceptance of background music at the POS (71 % rated the music with very good or good on a five units scale).

The data prove that this could be derived by the style of presented music. In no case music had been as background music was described in the 1970s: a musical style which stays behind attention of the customers. The presented background music fits the habits of the expected costumer-group, according to the theory of Bourdieu: Background music is preferred because it has been designed near to the everyday preference of music. By using a scale for musical habits (MUSIS) and some personal variables music user types could be identified which seem to be equivalent to the sinus milieus.