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Bloomberg Published December 20, 2024 Reading time
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The sound of desire: How music shapes our interactions with luxury brands

By
Bloomberg Published
December 20, 2024

If you walk into a Tom Ford store during the holiday shopping rush, you won’t be greeted with looping pop music or standard Christmas tunes. You might not even notice the music—but it will be there: artists seducing you from a playlist crafted to embody sophistication, edge and elegance, as you sort through wide lapel velvet smoking jackets and dark cherry scented candles.

The music selection is no mere whim of the sales associates that day; it was carefully chosen by a team of experts at Gray V, a global music branding agency that specializes in playlists for retail and hospitality brands. And it was selected with three main goals in mind: first, to encourage you to stay and luxuriate in the store; second, to create an environment that aligns with the brand’s identity and emotionally resonates with its audience (in harmony with the textures and smells you encounter there); and finally, to provide seasonal inspiration based on upcoming collections. 

We’ve all experienced the lure of an effective music playlist. Stores, hotels and gyms are actively influencing us right from the moment we walk through their doors with music that informs how we interact with their products, services and spaces. But it’s not just what’s played that affects our mood, it’s also how that music is delivered. Louder volumes, for example, can quicken the pace of interactions and customer turnover, whereas quieter and lower tempo music can inspire a more considered approach to products.