Department Store Playlist on Radio?

[Route 222]

My wife did some shopping the other day at Boscov's, a nice, locally-owned department store headquartered in Pennsylvania. While she was shopping, I relaxed on the couches in the furniture section and with Shazam on hand on my phone for any songs I didn't recognize, I logged what I heard on the department store system for about 45 minutes:

Lukas Graham - You're Not There (2015)
Everything But The Girl - Missing (1994)
Aretha Franklin - I'm In Love (1974)
Ambrosia - You're The Only Woman (1980)
Faith Hill - Breathe (1999)
Pablo Cruise - Whatcha Gonna Do (1977)
Eagles - Love Will Keep Us Alive (1994)
Robin Thicke - Magic (2008)
Crowded House - Don't Dream It's Over (1986)

What's my point of this? I enjoyed the sound very much. I sent the playlist to my friend who is an PD and said "why can't this be on FM radio?" He said "such a playlist would never happen on regular radio. I asked him why. He coyly responded "it just wouldn't. No one would ever touch a playlist like that."

So my question for discussion: Why does this playlist work for a department store but would never work for radio?

Discuss.

 

[TheBigA]

Why does this playlist work for a department store but would never work for radio?

Discuss.

It's a very different experience. People tune to radio stations for a specific format. People don't shop in a department store for the in-store music. Or most people don't.

 

[drt]

Thank You BIG A; I was just going to say, this is question for the BIG A, David Eduardo or Frank.

As a person, not in the radio business, I would say (and not meaning to be flippant) but a department store’s customers are a captive audience, so the department store has more leeway in playing 4 decades of music; and they don’t have to worry about ratings and advertisers. Radio stations that still play music seem loathe to play more than 2 decades of music, maybe 3 decades in some unusal cases, but four decades, unless it Zoomer radio out of Toronto or Buddy Shular’s station in the Buffalo area, it’s virtually unheard of and not profitable.

 

[CTListener]

Department stores, chain pharmacies, fast food restaurants and the like all have customers spread over just about all demographics, so the background music is a little bit of something for everyone, but nothing that will interfere with shopping or dining, I often hear songs that have been forgotten by radio in such places -- things like Van Morrison's "Why Must I Always Explain," Mary Chapin Carpenter's "Passionate Kisses" and even Debby Boone's "You Light Up My Life." It really doesn't matter how any of these songs would go over on a radio format because the store/restaurant audience is captive and the music is there strictly as background, not too bland or predictable as to be sleep-inducing, not too edgy to distract the customer from the purpose of his/her visit.

 

[DavidEduardo]

It's a very different experience. People tune to radio stations for a specific format. People don't shop in a department store for the in-store music. Or most people don't.

And the music is there to enhance the shopping experience by providing a mood as well as by masking the noise of a store and its other customers. The services that are quite well programmed, such as the ones in the mid-range restaurant category (Olive Garden, Outback, Red Lobster, Applebee's, etc) try to to create the desired atmosphere that goes with the establishment and even the time of day.

 

[DavidEduardo]

So my question for discussion: Why does this playlist work for a department store but would never work for radio?

Others have already observed that the purpose of music at retail and in restaurants and the like is "buying mood enhancement" and not entertainment.

Here is a blog with several articles from Music Technologies International, which provides music services. It's run by a former radio General Manager and station owner, so the way the blog is written should be fairly illuminating.

http://mtimusic.com/blog/

I did some work for MTI when they were beginning, and it's a good company with good people.

 

[Pat3]

I often hear unfamiliar songs in stores and resturants that would sound perfect on an AC station. I also look them up on my phone or youtube when I get home. Most of these songs are not oldies, but decent songs by established artists that get hardly any airplay. But of course we still have to suffer through Nickelsuck and Matchbook 20 on the radio. Another great source for some good songs that don't get played are heard on TV commercials, especially Apple. Some of these songs become hits from their use on TV. If you look some of them up on Youtube, many of the comments on the message boards will be "Apple" or other company brought me here.

 

[MarcB]

I can't say for sure whether people shop at a particular store because of the music they play, but when I used to work at ShopRite Supermarket and some of the customers used to tell the employees they love the Oldies Music they play. They use the Muzak service. I remember when the store was under construction seeing the Muzak truck parked in their paring lot.

Target doesn't play music in their stores.

 

[CTListener]

Others have already observed that the purpose of music at retail and in restaurants and the like is "buying mood enhancement" and not entertainment.

Here is a blog with several articles from Music Technologies International, which provides music services. It's run by a former radio General Manager and station owner, so the way the blog is written should be fairly illuminating.

I did some work for MTI when they were beginning, and it's a good company with good people.

Link to the blog, please?

 

[gr8oldies]

I'd almost bet the in-store playlist is Muzak's (now Mood Media)'s "FM1" (stands for Foreground Music, not the FM broadcast band). I was a captive audience 8 hours a day at one workplace. It was basically an A/C mix but was noted for some unfamiliars they played, and i recognized them from hearing those songs in stores and restaurants. (A few were "My Ever Changing Moods" by Style Council, "Miss Chatelaine"-KD Lang, "Say You'll Stay" from the American Pie soundtrack, and an off-brand version of "Suspicious Minds". I'm puzzled why those mostly unrecognizable tunes (maybe to chase you out of the store?).

There are chains that play 60s oldies in store. The question then becomes, if they play oldies in the store, why won't they advertise on oldies radio? I kinda know the answer but I may not be the best at articulating it.

 

[TheBigA]

The question then becomes, if they play oldies in the store, why won't they advertise on oldies radio? I kinda know the answer but I may not be the best at articulating it.

My guess is it's a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Ad decisions being made out of house.

 

[CTListener]

My guess is it's a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Ad decisions being made out of house.

The people listening in the store are already improving the store's bottom line. If hearing 40- to 50-year-old songs while they shop makes the older ones among them enjoy their time in the store more, that's great, but they're not going to spend any more on that visit just because they heard "Monday, Monday" or "You're So Vain" in the canned fruits and veggies aisle. Nor are they going to switch stores, or switch from shopping online back to brick and mortar, just because they hear a store advertising on a radio station that plays music they like. The stores advertise on stations that aim younger because they know that's the audience easiest to persuade.

 

[DavidEduardo]

Link to the blog, please?

http://mtimusic.com/blog/

 

[tall_guy1]

They should try sprinkling them in more often, though. Steel City in KC does that with their stations in KC with some lower charting recurrents and golds like that and works well ratings-wise with some of the top stations in town (though they are in financial trouble still.)

 

[sack]

I will never forget the time I stopped in the Giant (grocery store) in the afternoon and the soundtrack was Grateful Dead “Touch of Grey”. I had a much better shopping experience than expected because of that.

 

[firepoint525]

Some interesting experiences here:

I remember being in the (now closed!) Applebee's, and hearing a song that SAMPLED "Gonna Make You Sweat." I knew that I was getting old when I heard "Gonna Make You Sweat" SAMPLED. I did not know what the song was, or who sang it.

I heard "Here Comes the Sun" in Kroger at a time when we had had about two weeks' worth of cloudy weather. Just made me want to see the sun for real, that much more!

I like hearing certain songs over a store's PA system, but it sucks when they interrupt a cool song for some stupid in-store ad. And yes, it happens!

Hardee's must be aiming at a younger crowd. Whenever I am in there, I MIGHT hear ONE song that I remember. "Down Under" or "Always Something There to Remind Me" (Naked Eyes' version) among all the techno-crap that they otherwise play. (This particular restaurant must do superior drive-through business because the dining room is nearly always empty!)

I have heard of some businesses using reverse psychology, and playing the likes of Frank Sinatra, or Barry Manilow, or even classical music, so that people (mostly teenagers) WON'T hang out in their parking lots!

 

[CTListener]

The oddest song I ever heard was "Dance With Me Tonight" by Olly Murs, on the mall sound system at Westfield Meriden. Murs, a big star in the UK and parts of Europe, has had only one minor hit here ("Troublemaker," #25 in 2012). "Dance With Me Tonight" never got beyond "Bubbling Under" in Billboard, and the only place I remember hearing it was on SiriusXM, which occasionally tries to "break" artists and songs here on its own. (You'd have thought Colbie Caillat's "Little Things" and Vanessa Carlton's "Hands On Me" were smash hits if you'd listened to SXM when they were out -- in fact, those songs were the stiffest of stiffs.)

Makes me wonder if the mall might have been subscribing to one of SXM's music-for-business services, a la Trader Joe's. If not, then how did that song get into an American mall's audio?

 

[anotherguyTN]

When I was working at Lowe's they were running Muzak's FM1 feed, which was OK with me for the most part. But considering that this was in Jackson, TN I'm surprised that there weren't any complaints that we weren't playing any country music.

 

[joebtsflk1]

Just yesterday I was in the local Walmart Neighborhood Market and noticed that they were playing music. The typical Walmart supercenter, if they play music, you don't notice it.

One of the songs that came over the speaker's was 1962's "What's Your Name?" by Don & Juan. It just sounded too dated and it's a song that had been played enough over the years that I don't need to hear it again. And I like doo-wop.

 

[eriedj]

A former area radio DJ from the Meadville, Franklin PA area a couple years ago moved to Walmart headquarters in Arkansas to be one of the two jocks on Walmart Radio. Sometimes the Walmart radio experience isn't bad, yet the style and genre seems to vary store to store.

We have a Boscovs here and sometimes I shake my head at the song choices. Are these programmed to get the customer in and out FAST? lol.