By Michael Spencer.
“Why do we play ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ when no one in the bar is over 40?”
Why indeed? It was this comment from InterContinental Hotels Group CEO, Andrew Cosslett in a wide-ranging Time Magazine interview (see Time Magazine, The Times, Chief Executive) that first caught our attention.
So my Sound Strategies colleague, ex-Burson Marsteller CEO (London) Reginald Watts, put a call in.
Since then Sound Strategies has been working with the Group’s lead brand, InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, to develop a comprehensive Acoustic Program that will affect all the sound and music touch points in the brand’s 148 hotels around the world and across all communications channels. Intercontinental will launch its Acoustic Program in early 2008.
According to David Anderson, vice president, global brand innovation for InterContinental Hotels & Resorts:
“Over the last year, we’ve been conducting in-depth consumer research around the world and one area of focus was the application of sound and music in our hotels. Music and sound have a profound and distinct affect on people’s physiological states and their moods. And of course, music and sound contribute significantly to the essence of our Brand. Therefore, we chose to take a comprehensive and scientific approach to our acoustic program.”
Music is such a fundamental part of our lives, our every tradition and celebration – regardless of culture – is accompanied by its own special sound-track. It’s so integral to our life experiences, in fact, that it is very easy to slip into cliché. And, as was only too obvious to Andy Cosslett, a hotel bar, restaurant, or even elevator, were potentially major transgressors! In fact, the company’s own research found that while two out of three guests consider themselves ‘passionate about music’ and are very clear about which styles they prefer, other research cites that nearly half of all hotel guests consider music used in hotels in general is ‘poor or very poor.’ This despite the widespread availability of hotel-branded CDs!
For us, this has been a fascinating and challenging commission which has opened up a new way of thinking for the use of sound as an effective communications tool. The whole of the work was underpinned by a year-long research and analysis project into all aspects of the brand and business, and informed by the latest psychological and neurological information into how we associate with music. Not to mention a great day-long Music Awareness Workshop at the famous Abbey Road Studios in London with the entire InterContinental Hotels & Resorts brand team – not quite Take That recording ‘We can rule the world, ’ but as close as a brand team gets, I’ll wager!
The end result has been the creation of a robust methodology which can be used for briefing music suppliers, agencies, live musicians, in fact anyone who is involved in sound in the hospitality industry. One that will take into account the differing needs of both communications media and audience (participator, really) situations, be it in physical spaces, online, television, telephony, or navigation.
Sound Strategies aims to help business understand more about sound and how we interact with it. We work closely with companies’ corporate affairs and marketing departments and the communications and advertising industries to examine how the use of music and sound can be more effective in all aspects of communications.