New research: Beethoven makes you want to buy stuff
mainA new essay by music historian Peter Kupfer argues that ‘nostalgic music and ad-appropriate lyrics aid in the transmission of ad messages.’
Put another way: ‘a symphony or a sonata in commercials often reflects the cachet that classical music has acquired over the past century.’
Er, maybe.
Here’s the academic abstract: His article describes a study involving 557 participants that investigated effects of respondents’ sociodemographic background on their rating of appeal and congruency of music in television commercials, with a focus on classical music. Though research indicates that there are connections between listeners’ musical preferences and their social backgrounds, and targeted advertising is premised on the notion that consumers can be divided and marketed to by sociodemographic categories, the results of the study suggest that sociodemographic background may not play a central role when it comes to the processing of music and images together in commercials, whether classical or other. In its use of SurveyMonkey’s Audience service to assemble participants, the study is exploratory in nature, suggesting a potential new resource for research on audiovisual media.
Perhaps not.
See! I told you Beethoven was racist!
Well, Austria has changed Mozart into a chocolate salesman, so….
Having lived happily in Vienna for two years, I often wondered if “Mozart Balls” started as a nasty Viennese joke… Thankfully, I never encountered any recipes for Mozart Eggs.
And Philip Glass’s music makes you buy the same thing over and over again.
“Glass” means ice cream in Swedish. Big sales figures here right now.
If advertisers want to convey some notion that this or that product (be it a car, a restaurant, linens, men’s suits, whatever) is very very classy, they often use classical music (or vaguely classical sounding) or someone with a British accent, or more likely, some pathetic attempt at a British accent. Or both.
I guess it must work.
I, however, drive a 2008 Scion.
Even classical music and British accents as advertising clichés take a back seat to cats, however. Cats can sell anything. I recommend the charming book “The Cat Made Me Buy It.”
So the next James Bond film will be promoted with a Beethoven symphony instead of Monty Norman’s theme, and Blofeld will be played by a Ludwig look-alike, with a British accent, holding a white Persian cat.
Can’t fail.
It’s correct. Any time I listen to the adagio of the 4th symphony, I get this irresistable urge to buy dark-blue place mats. Cupboards got too full so I put an embargo on that movement.
Speaking of real Beethoven research, Baerenreiter and Henle have been turning up excellent new editions of Beethoven’s music. For real.
So there’s a reason why classical music is being used in more commercials nowadays, pairing donuts with the Flower Duet, and baby care products with Richard Strauss…