The musical side of advertisements

Abstract

This study delves into the role of music used in advertisements. The study used a mix of secondary research in the form of ad analysus and primary research in the form of expert interviews and focus group discussions. The ad analysis attempted to find any extant relations between the emotion depicted by the advertisement and the musical rudiments of the music used in the advertisement. The expert interviews featured professionals working on music in the advertising space. The focus group discussions utilized modified audio advertisements to test out the effect of a musical piece on the perceived pricing levels of a particular product category, using instances in both low-involvement and high-involvement products. The study found that advertisements in India in the 21st century predominantly uses music to accentuate the narrative as opposed to beinga brand jingle. The study also gets into detail about the creative process of making music for an advertisement, using a one-dimensional scale from creative to commercial film-making. It was also found that genres of music commonly associated with higher sophistication can offset the perceived price point estimate of the viewing consumer, hence affecting product purchase intent. Conruent music used in advertisements also could improve brand recall.