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Shopping Centers Today -> October 2001
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FROM CLASSICAL TO ROCK, MUSIC SETS MOOD FOR MALLS
By Dave Bodamer
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| Baltimore’s Security Square Mall takes a different approach to background music: Customers pick the tunes broadcast throughout the common areas from a jukebox. |
Most people passing through a regional mall’s common area might not notice music playing as they walk around, but that’s exactly the way mall marketing managers say they want it.
“You’re setting an atmosphere; you want shopping to be enjoyment,” said Fran Percich, CMD, marketing director, for Chesterfield (Mo.) Mall. “Music plays an important part in enhancing the shopping experience and the special event experience.”
For many marketing managers, the question of what music to play ties in directly to the mall’s target audience. Upscale malls often use classical music or other music that is understated; malls targeting mothers play contemporary pop music. In centers that have created special zones for teen shoppers, such as Glendale (Calif.) Galleria, top 40 rules.
“Malls use music as a marketing tool to attract people into the center and to get them to walk around and shop,” observed Michele Reynolds, assistant vice president of marketing for Nashville, Tenn.-based BMI General Licensing, one of the two major bodies that copyrights music and sells licenses to malls. “A lot of centers continue to provide musical events or musical attractions to keep traffic moving.”
Mall marketing managers make a point of knowing who their customers are and what music they like; the last thing they want is customers to be distracted by musical selections that clash with their tastes.
“You don’t want to go too heavy one way or the other. You want to be right there in the middle of what people like,” Percich said.
The Mall at Short Hills (N.J.) plays mostly classical music that is understated.
“We should just have beautiful music to hear as you’re shopping,” said Janet Cesario, the center’s marketing director. “We’re trying to create an elegant atmosphere. Music plays a role, but it’s more in the background than the center of a performance.”
That center plays classical music for the majority of the year, except during the Christmas holiday season. Sometimes it even brings in local classical musicians to perform at the center, but not as an attraction as much as to provide atmosphere.
“We tested it out when we went through our expansion in 1995,” Cesario said. “We had live musicians throughout the property. … Our customers appreciate that type of music.”
The mall did not perform a formal survey of its customers, but the reception customers gave the musicians confirmed it was on the right track.
“Many of our customers even went up to the musicians to get business cards and to see about hiring them for special events,” Cesario said. “That was a nice way of testing for us.”
Malls that cluster tenants appealing to similar customers often use music to differentiate one part of the mall from the other. For instance, The Mills Corp.’s Block at Orange, Calif., plays rock music in its “Generation Y” zone, but not throughout the center. In Glendale Galleria, Los Angeles, operated by Donahue Schriber, local station KIIS-FM broadcasts from a deejay booth located in “The Zone,” an area for young people featuring retailers such as No Fear, Limited Too, Hot Topic and Vans.
Music also is often used to support promotions at malls. For example, Chesterfield Mall brought in boy band Back Street Boys as part of a Seventeen fashion show highlighting prom dresses.
“It brought a certain energy level to the promotion,” Percich said.
Sometimes the customers themselves have a direct say in what is played. Security Square Mall, Baltimore, installed a jukebox when it renovated its food court in 1998, using a 1950s diner theme; the music customers select is broadcast throughout the center’s common areas. Security Square also works with one of its record stores — Camelot — to compile top 10 lists of the most popular CDs in the jukebox, which the store then promotes in its stores.
“We felt that this was better than the old boring Neil Diamond/Muzak selections,” Security Square General Manager Deirdre Moore, CSM, said. “It gives you more interaction with the customer.”
Legally, malls are obligated to pay licensing fees for most music — recorded or live — that is played in common areas. The main licensing bodies are BMI and ASCAP, both of which are nonprofit organizations where artists can register their works. Malls wishing to perform or play the music then buy the right to do so, with most of the money going back to the artist. The average yearly fee paid by the mall is usually less than $1,000 for each service.
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