Let’s jump into the shoes of the customer for a minute, and breakdown how music enhances the stadium experience for the attending fan on a scientific level and hopefully in the process this will explain why the proper use of music is so effective in generating loyalty to the experience.
Music is Emotion.
“Emotion inspires human behavior - when you move the heart, the body (and the wallet) follows - and brands that create emotionally driven customer experiences will have a distinct customer advantage.” - Emotion Inspires by Play Networks
When customers purchase a ticket and enter the stadium, they are looking to be taken on a journey in a sports amusement park with all of the ups and downs of a the “Colossus”. The art of the “Game Score” is all about injecting the right song (or sound “cue”) into the “air” at the right moment to enhance the raw emotion of the “game’, harnessing that same emotional energy and redirecting it right back to the customers of the experience. The messaging and the raw energetic power of sound/music flows out into the game, that energy is received and felt by the players or performers and returned back to the customers in the form of worldly sports entertainment. Music curation and strategic deployment is the source of this infinite cycle of raw energy.
Evoking emotions at the intersection of “music and the moment” is an unbelievably underutilized location where we can find the formula for emotional engagement. There is countless research that says when music passes through our brains, it fires up the parts that are directly wired to our feelings. And we don’t need research to know that music and feelings have always gone together like Peanut butter & jelly.
However when it comes to the customer experience, research shows that emotion is the component that has the largest impact on loyalty, and is the primary component of customer experience success in all industries where the quality of the product and the overall quality of the branded environment is arguably the most effective way to improve a brand experience. In other words, customers want to “feel” something when they experience live sports. They want to justify their reasoning for spending the money on experiencing live versus staying home. An emotion evoking experience, or a little “bang for your buck” is the science behind the gravitational pull on your stadium experience.
In the Pro sports industry, the quality of the team on the field is not something that brand strategist have control over. However, what is controllable is the quality of the brand experience even when the team is not producing “winning streaks”.
Emotion from Music Drives Consumer Behavior
“Emotions are an essential element of the consumer experience that brands must address to establish meaningful connections.” - Emotion Inspires by Play Networks
Where the average sports consumer might believe that their decisions to purchase and re-patronage a certain product, brand, or experience is based on a conscious thought, their decisions on what products or brands they use and love are usually influenced by subconscious emotional factors that we are not completely aware of. We make decisions on things like purchases based on the way we feel about it. Or more importantly, how the product or experience makes you feel. Tapping into emotions by creating moments with music can enable brands to create positive experiences and form long lasting customer relationships through the stadium experience.
-Lee K Merritts
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