Why Music Makes You Buy More

Music is kind of an emotional shortcut.

It taps into your brain's control panel and helps regulate mood, reduce stress, create emotional stickiness.

In grocery stores, if you play slower music, that actually increases grocery bills because people are walking more slowly in their browsing.

In retail, like fashion environment, if you play up-tempo music, people tend to stay longer and purchase more.

95% of people, when we survey consumers, say the music can make or break a workout.

There's There's so much research around how music can impact stress levels prior to surgery better than valium, by the way.

Wow.

From one side of things, using music incorrectly and getting soothed, Crumble Cookies is actually getting soothed right now

by Warner Music.

Music is so intensely personal that it can be a disservice to your experience if it's the wrong music.

Boomers don't like techno.

Sorry to overgeneralize, but it's true.

No kidding.

Yeah.

Brand recall and emotional association go way up when the music is congruent with your brand.

So making sure that it actually makes sense relative to every other touch point and everything that's out there.

That affects my emotional attachment to that brand now, right?

Because if I have this emotional experience, now suddenly I'm really tied to this brand.

Does music serve a clear purpose tied to your product experience?

Is this escapism?

Is it relaxation?

Is it fitness?

And is it social connection?

Music impacts emotions, which can impact decisions.

That's where a music strategy becomes really important.

Welcome back to Experts of Experience.

I'm your host, Lacey Peace.

I've got our producer, Rose, here with me as well.

And we just got off the mic with Lauren Puffpath, the president and co-founder of Feed Media Group.

What a fun convo, Rose.

I loved this one, and I've been looking forward to this one for months.

I told my partner about this interview this morning.

I was like, this is going to be so fun.

We don't get to talk about music every day

when it comes to customer experience.

And after this conversation, I'm like, we should be talking about music way more, both in with in-person customer experiences and digital customer experiences.

Because what I've always thought about was like, when I hear, you know, the Beatles or something like that while I'm grocery shopping at HEB, like I think about in-person experiences, but Lauren spoke a lot about how music impacts a digital customer experience as well.

I think we're all familiar with that experience that you mentioned, Rose, being like in a retailer and hearing music.

And maybe we hate it, maybe we love it, maybe it's too loud, maybe it's totally off-brand or off-vibe.

But we've all had that like, you know, in-person physical experience at a brand and we hear some music.

But what Lauren is introducing, and this is not like a new concept, but the way that they're thinking about it and tying all the pieces together is really fascinating.

She's proposing that we can take music and wrap it around the entire customer experience and fold it into the digital brand experience as well.

So like one thing that she mentioned that they're doing is they are working with American Eagle to, while you're shopping, you can listen to the American Eagle radio and actually be shopping on your phone, on your device, listening to the brand's curated radio.

And I think for brands and for CX leaders, what's going to be particularly interesting in this episode to hear is the actual metrics of how this impacts engagement, return buyers,

how many purchases occur in your app if you've got your radio playing, and overall, the emotional tie that someone has to you and your company and to your products that they would not have otherwise had if there wasn't music playing.

So there's a lot of interesting ways music interacts with our brains, and the neuroscience behind it is fascinating.

And Lauren does share that in the episode.

She does explain, you you know, the neuroscience behind it and how it actually interacts with your brain.

And it's really cool as a brand, as a CX leader, as someone who's maybe in marketing or product or sales, even, can think about how you can take music, fold it into your experience digitally, and actually see engagement increase and actually see metrics correlate to that change and how your customer is experiencing your brand.

One question I did ask Lauren was, you know,

is this something that could apply to

B2B, B2C?

Like, is this like an industry agnostic strategy?

In simple terms, she kind of said yes.

Like, it really depends on

whether or not your brand wants to create sticky digital experiences for your customer.

And I really like that she used that word a lot throughout the interview, sticky, but it's such a good illustrative word to use because that's what music does.

Something I was thinking about too is not only in medical settings, but telehealth settings.

I mean, before I meet with my telehealth provider, I sit in like a little digital waiting room.

And I'm sitting in silence, of course, because I'm logged into Zoom and I'm waiting for them to join the appointment.

And they're always 15 minutes late.

So during that 15 minutes, it would be lovely to like have some light, you know, classical music playing or something to relax me because, you know, you're going to the doctor.

Sometimes it's for a regular checkup, but there could be a stressful reason.

You need to speak with your doctor.

So there's so many different industries that this this music strategy could apply to.

I think about that with my kiddo whenever I took him to his first like doctor, doctor's appointment or dentist's appointment, how it might have benefited his nervous system to have certain like low frequencies playing while he was in the doctor's office.

You have the opportunity to curate an experience for your customer without even being in the same room as them.

One customer could really like, you know, upbeat

pop music while they're scrolling Pinterest.

And somebody else could could like, you know, something slower or even a frequency that I learned.

You don't even have to license these frequencies.

Well, and speaking of licensing, that is something that, like, as a business, you need to look out for.

There are so many laws, rules, regulations across the board when it comes to music.

And you might think, oh, you know, I play this music in my store.

That means that I can play it on my app.

No, you can't.

There's totally different rules and laws for that.

So being able to understand those, and Lauren shares that today,

is really important.

And to understand all the different little logistical things that you might need to think about of, oh, I can play this legally in the US, but I actually can't play it in Europe because there's a totally different system for how I can get licensing done there.

I loved what Lauren had to say about all of the

not just

data that they collect

on consumers, but also how biometrics are going to be an even bigger and bigger

contributing factor for how music strategy is designed.

Because, you know, your smartwatch could say, oh, your heart, like Lauren used this as an example, your smartwatch could tell you your cortisol is getting a little high.

Maybe go for a walk and listen to this playlist.

Yeah, oh, for sure.

But before we get over to Lauren, hit that like button, hit that subscribe button.

And if you have a recommendation for a company or a guest that you want to see on this show with me, you want to hear all their inner secrets and want to know how they provide a great customer experience, drop it in the comments below or shoot me a DM on LinkedIn and I'll reach out.

And now here's Lauren Puffpath, president and co-founder of Feed Media.

Lauren, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks so much for having me.

Yeah, I'm so excited for this episode.

Like I, we've been planning it for a couple months now.

And I've just been sitting on it and I'm like, I can't wait to talk to Lauren about music.

And I've been teasing it with all my friends and our listeners that we're going to have an episode that is going to cover music and how it affects the customer experience.

So I'm so excited that you're here.

Thanks so much.

I mean, I feel fortunate to be able to talk to something that I personally am passionate about, but brings out so much energy and excitement in other folks too.

I just kind of did the conference rounds the last month or so, and it's really fun to be at a tech conference and be pretty much the only person talking about music in the room, I have to admit.

Yes, yeah, it's such a good thing.

So with for our listeners who don't know, what is Feed Media?

And can you just share a little bit more about, yeah, what you guys are doing?

Yeah, so we help brands create really sticky, engaging experiences for their customers with music.

We're a B2B music platform.

So we do all of the licensing, the curation, the streaming, the reporting, the payouts, the whole legal side of it is all covered as well.

So an end-to-end solution for music for digital businesses.

Awesome.

And what, because you're a co-founder of this company, so what spiked your interest in music?

Was it something that at an early age that you're like, oh, I'm so passionate about this?

Tell me this journey from, oh, we had this idea, we had this passion for music, and then we created this company.

So, yeah, I have always been passionate about music.

I was the kid, I was an 80s kid with the boombox recording on cassette the little bits and pieces of my favorite songs from the Sunday top 40, Casey Casa,

creating my mixtapes when I was seven or eight.

Oh, I love that.

Then learned to play instruments, playing bands and orchestras.

and then became a DJ.

And so it's been, I don't know, lifelong passion of mine.

Career-wise, I actually started in the advertising industry and then moved into really focusing on growth and expansion and company building for startups.

And then about 10 years ago, I had the opportunity to bring those two things together, like all of that energy spent trying to figure out how to grow a business combined with the passion for music.

And here we are.

It's great because our team is generally

all kind of crazy about music in a good way.

And it brings together,

it's a through line for the team and for the company that really helps us navigate some of the challenges of growing and scaling.

And how many years has Feed Media been around?

We are 10 in April.

So it's been a while.

10.

Wow.

Wow.

That's so exciting.

Congratulations and happy almost birthday.

I know.

Thank you.

Yeah, no, it's certainly been a journey.

I mean, finding product fit is challenging for any business.

We've also got this additional challenge of like the supply aspect of working with the rights holders, the labels, the publishers, the PROs.

There's so many different organizations to work with.

So managing what we're trying to do, quite frankly, is create a win-win situation where we're adding new revenue streams to the labels and publishers.

We're making it easier for the businesses and brands to license music.

and then ultimately making really great customer experiences for their end users.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love that you guys are sitting in this like central spot connecting all the dots, but I can't imagine how complicated it is because each of those three things that you just listed have so many different requirements that you have to be an expert in to make it all work.

So it's really beautiful spot that you guys have created for yourselves.

Thanks.

Yeah.

Not going to lie, definitely tricky, but our, you know, the like real value we bring to our customers is the infrastructure tech piece plus all the licensing like that together is is pretty powerful.

Yeah.

Well, i want to kind of start before we get into all the technical components there i want to start a little bit with just music itself and sort of the science behind music because i know it's something that you're passionate about um so before we get into like how we can use music for business i would love to just hear from you why music is so powerful like what is it doing to our brains that is causing us to have such a emotional impact and also helping us have so many memories tied to music.

Yeah, it's music is kind of an emotional shortcut.

Like it taps into your brain's control panel and lights up so many different areas of the brain, which is why it's so powerful.

So, for example, the tone of music activates your amygdala, which is your lizard brain, and it helps regulate mood, reduce stress, create emotional stickiness.

You've got the auditory cortex, which is sort of the music decoder in your brain.

It's processing all of the information.

There's the motor cortex, which is rhythm and getting your brain and body in sync.

There's the nucleus accumbens, which is your reward system.

So, the same system that gives you the dopamine hits that social media companies are trying to trigger as much as possible,

but here without any addictive qualities.

So, I think fundamentally, it's just that it touches so many different parts of the brain, is what makes it so powerful.

And it's not just brain, actually, but it's body.

There's physical sensation that comes from hearing

a drop that you love, like getting you excited, or a particular tone or lyricist that you really love.

So it's, it's a sort of full-body connection, I guess is the short answer.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And with that, I am curious if you have any perspective on nostalgia that's caused by music.

I've noticed this a lot recently that there's been a few like really like older hit songs that have made their way into TV nowadays.

And so I'm just curious, like, how does that activate nostalgia in our bodies?

Because I've really been seeing a lot of marketing that's been leaning that way using some like older music, or they take older songs and like revamp them and make really cool hip songs with them.

Yeah, I just would love to hear that.

Well, a good hook is a good hook, no matter where, you know,

what, um, what's underneath it or who's singing on top of it.

So that's part of it.

The second thing is, um, there's some really interesting research around,

particularly for

music therapists who are helping folks who have dementia and Alzheimer's, that the music that you are passionate about and really enjoy when you're between the ages of 12 and 24-ish

is always important to you.

And it has something to do with the hormones and everything that's going on and your self-discovery and just like that critical phase of life.

But this holds true generation after generation, that that time segment of your life, you will always have an affinity for the music.

So that's part of it too, is just like generationally as who, you know, who's

who's running the ad campaigns right now?

And what were they listening to when they were between 12 and 24?

That's good.

That's good.

I bet we can track that back for sure.

Seriously.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and then part of this thing, like part of what you guys are offering at feed is an analysis of how music affects the brain or the different types of components of music and how they sort of affect behavior and consumer behavior specifically.

Could you talk to me a little bit about the, I think it's four components that you guys have that you analyze?

There are so many different ways that, as I mentioned,

music affects humans, but we think about four fundamentals of human musicality to kind of simplify a little bit.

So the first is tone.

That's really the emotional color of music.

That's what can trigger dopamine release or empathy or introspection.

There are a couple of examples I use around tone and their emotional impact.

One is Nora Jones, Come Away With Me, just beautiful, melodic, really soothing, and it actually can lower cortisol and bring your heart rate down.

Another is Smells Like Tea Spirit by Nirvana, which has this intro guitar riff that is really

dissonant and harsh.

And it's actually the chords they use that interval is actually called the devil's interval in classical music because it is so dissonant for our brains.

Oh, wow.

Tone makes a huge difference.

The other is

rhythm.

So our brains really love patterns, right?

Rhythm is all about predictable timing.

When we hear a really strong beat, especially in like the 120 to 140 BPM range, it lights up our motor cortex.

So driving

fast rhythms that map to the heart rate you're trying, heart rate zone you're trying to get to is really important for exercise.

And we work with a ton of fitness companies.

Yep, that makes sense.

Help get their end users to the state they want to be in with music.

You can't have like a slow,

like slow flow class with like this hard rock beat.

It doesn't work on it all.

Yeah.

Although there are some contrarians.

So we do work with some companies doing like metal yoga, which.

Oh my gosh, I've never heard of that.

It's a thing.

Wow.

It's not for me.

It is actually a thing.

But the third is the reward system.

So again, the, you know, when we hear hear music we love or even anticipate music that we love, it helps release or trigger a dopamine release in the brain.

And then the fourth one that we think about a lot is connection, right?

So music is a neurological connector.

And

there's so much discussion right now around digital isolation and divisiveness.

And, you know, at the brain level, being able to get two people's emotions and activities aligned through music it's really important to create some weeness if you will

one really great example of the connection that togetherness is as dance church so dance church is a boutique class that does in-person dancing on sunday it's movement for all different skill levels taught by a dancer but it's really

community and movement together.

And in 2020, after after lockdown, we were working with them to take their experience to digital online and through their app.

And the virality of this class is just insane.

It really caught on because we were all, we were lonely.

We were so lonely.

And so having 45 minutes together together through a screen in your living room to experience movement

and get some endorphin flowing was really important.

Yeah, for sure.

And I also, when I think about this

connectiveness that music allows us to have, it's like, it doesn't matter my religious belief, political perspective, or anything.

When I'm at like a concert enjoying music, whoever's standing next to me, we're all here for this, the same experience.

And so I definitely agree and echo that, that this like unity that music brings us together with, like, it's, it's fascinating.

And it really does bridge all gaps.

It boosts empathy as well.

Boosts sympathy and trust to things that we need more of right now.

Oh, that's richer.

I mean, we always need more of it, like endless amounts, please.

Yes.

Awesome.

Well, I, so I love this like perspective you've given us, given us on how the brain sort of operates with music, some of the components of how you guys are thinking about analyzing music.

You've given now this example of fitness and how you're taking music and sort of pairing it with fitness.

I would like to stick with that a little bit more.

Could you dive a little bit deeper into other ways you guys have, you know, taken music in the fitness industry specifically?

And then we can talk about other really cool, interesting avenues.

You guys have done this elsewhere.

Yeah, I mean, fitness is such an obvious pairing.

I mean, 95% of people, when we survey consumers, say the music can make or break a workout.

So, how do we find a way to represent the instructor's brand?

Because they are the talent, right?

The fitness instructor is the talent, the brand of the business, map the

rhythm, the tone, the intensity, the volume of the music to the script of the workout, and you know, do that at scale for millions of people every day.

And so that's that's been a really fun, fascinating journey for us working with some really big names in fitness like hydro and tonal and beach body and alumoves and you know a huge range of customers there and different modalities.

And

our curators, because we have a team of musicologists who,

yes, we use lots of algorithms to do programming, but that human layer on top is really important for us as well.

So, our curators are

probably the smartest people in the industry about how to program a particular kind of music for a particular person and a particular modality and fitness.

And it's really been fascinating to sort of work through this with the industry along the way.

What are some of the challenges you guys faced early on when you were doing this?

So, one thing that many people are not aware of is that licensing music for, let's say, a physical studio,

those licenses are completely different if you're streaming it through a phone or an app.

Completely different.

So

there was an expectation for instructors that just like in their boutique studio, they go pull up a Spotify playlist and hit play,

they can do the same thing through an app.

And it's just like the commercial components of that are 100% not true.

So there was for us, a lot of education and a lot of training around, no, this is actually how you need to license and program music in a digital environment.

It is still, it's kind of an ongoing challenge and something, you know, Spotify's API is not available for commercial use, but people use it commercially all the time.

And so it's just copyright law is tough to, it's really just tough to enforce in a lot of ways.

So that was, I'd say, that was kind of the initial early challenge of, okay, this is a different use case in a different environment.

How do we program and license specifically for that?

And teach the instructors, hey, why this, this is important to do it this way.

You can't just copy paste what you've been playing in class here.

Yes.

And now the instructor's having more of the brand overlay too.

So they may not care about explicitness in their classes, but the brand may.

And so being sort of that arbiter between the two of them.

So our curators, again, like they're up in the production studios, they're understanding the talent.

They're getting to know the brand and really helping shape the strategy overall.

So now, you know, that's kind of early on when you guys first started, and I'm sure it's still a challenge as you're going.

But now that you guys have kind of rolled this out, you're working with several different types of studios, fitness instructors specifically.

What are you seeing as like the challenge as you guys grow and scale?

Because again, I'm thinking, like, how is it possible for even a musicologist who's awesome to sit down and like watch all these

gym videos and decide which music needs to go with it?

Like, is it that hands-on?

Or Or like, how are we augmenting this human selection with the algorithms that you guys have?

Our curators aren't programming for every workout.

They're kind of working in conjunction with the instructors who lay out the script and this is what they have in mind.

And then we make sure that the licensing supports what they're doing and then we stream it all.

So it is, it is absolutely tricky.

I'd say one of the bigger opportunities.

and challenges in moving forward is really trying to figure out how to create a great global experience because global expansion is on many companies minds right now and there is no global copyright law.

So music is licensed country by country, use case by use case.

And so really getting

a program that supports our customers' growth goals at scale across the globe is one of the big opportunities.

That's fascinating.

I would have not have thought about that.

I mean, I get the like from from classroom to digital, there's a barrier that needs to be bridged, but I would have totally not thought, oh, if I'm in some other country wanting to watch this video, suddenly now there's different laws and rules.

And the organizations who are issuing the licenses are completely different in every country.

And you may have

in Europe, for example, seven or eight different.

places you need to go to license music.

And so, yeah, it's the matrix gets a little complicated.

Oh, wow, wow.

Okay, that makes sense.

Well, so we talked about fitness.

I would like to switch gears a little bit to some of the other types of examples you guys have done this for, like other types of businesses that you've done this for.

And first, I want to start with,

I think what most CX leaders that are listening would maybe have familiar experience with outside of fitness videos is like when I go into a store.

And I hear music playing, right?

So that's like our standard experience of music as tied to retail.

But you guys are thinking about it a little bit differently.

You guys are doing something a little bit different with how you can actually tie music into like digital experiences.

Could you share what you're doing there?

Yeah, I mean, music in retail has a long history of being understood to be important in the physical location.

And there are, there's some really interesting studies from the 80s and 90s around how tippo impacts the shopping experience.

So famous study from the 80s in grocery stores, if you play slower music, that actually increases uh grocery bills because people are walking more slowly and they're browsing on the flip side in retail like fashion environment if you play up tempo music people tend to stay longer and purchase more and so it's very context dependent but definitely an understanding that mood impacts emotions, which can impact decisions, or music impacts emotions, which can impact decisions.

Now,

you know, starting around eight to 10 years ago, we started having conversations with retailers talking about omni-channel strategy and how they can bring their brand to life.

Like,

what can we do to bridge these experiences a little more?

And that's where music has come into the picture.

So working with

a ton of different retailers, but really did some fun, interesting, deeper data work with American Eagle outfitters who were

at the time, it felt a little rogue to them internally, like, let's get creative, let's bring some music into the app.

How can we, between the two brands, AEO and Aerie, how do we represent those

to bring the more life, it's more bring more life into the e-commerce experience, essentially.

And so we worked with their team doing in-store music programming to bring essentially AEO radio into the app.

And what we found is that users listening to music not only were spending more time in the app, they also were more likely to purchase and more likely to return.

So there's just, again, that emotional stickiness to the experience that made a real difference and was sort of a delight moment for the customers as well.

And was this something that they were kind of like surprised by?

They go on the app and oh my gosh, there's music here or did, you know, American Eagle kind of roll this out and be like, hey, we're going to start doing this.

I'm just curious like how that worked.

Yeah.

We worked with our marketing team quite a bit.

And

this is actually something that we find in every vertical we work with.

It's not, we're not just working with product to figure out the music engagement in the app, but it's also how do we work with your marketing team to give you some really great assets to use?

Like, hey, just roll down a new playlist.

Come listen to the new Brat station, you know, whatever the case may be.

And by and large, we find that the marketing teams are really happy to have something other than promos to talk about.

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Oh, that is so fun.

That's so interesting.

I mean, you guys get to plug in now at these companies, not just from a like a music standpoint, but also, oh, how do we actually functionally get this into the app?

How do we make sure that it works properly?

At what point are they listening to it?

How can they opt in, opt out of that?

So it's really cool.

You guys get to play a role in that entire experience for the customer.

Generally, I would say the engagement is led by product because it is a technical integration to get there, but then obviously deeply integrated with their engineering and development teams and work with them on the UX and what that experience looks like.

And then marketing to give them all the assets they need.

And then

finance, their finance teams like us too, because we take off all of the reporting, all the finance aspect of music out of it.

So yeah, we do have touch the whole organization.

Yeah, that's so cool.

And so you mentioned a few results that you guys have seen.

Were there any other results or any other companies that maybe you can't name, but any other, you know, like success stories you guys have seen with this in-app music experience?

Yeah, I mean, we, we also work with a lot of, so kind of corollary to fitness, we work with a lot of health and wellness companies.

And oftentimes that experience is more about stress relief and finding ways to give people tools to use throughout their day on a daily basis.

And so we've seen some really great engagement results with music in health and wellness apps.

We

work with a lot of, it's sort of a broad category, but smart devices.

So if you think of, for example,

new

company we're working with that does an entertainment system for ride share and finding ways other than like annoying quiz games to give you, to give you some music in the car.

And what does that experience look like?

And how does that impact your CSA or your score for that particular ride or that particular ride sharing company.

So that's been a lot of fun.

One that we're very excited about that is actually growing pretty quickly is a company called Escape, which is a robot massage.

And

it sounds, it sounds and looks a little different.

Yeah.

But the experience itself is really great.

And the, you know, as, so there's a table, there's the arms, the massaging arms, and there's a tablet that has

a variety of music to kind of keep you focused and engaged and sort of forget like that's actually touching you, but make that funny.

But that's a lot of fun.

We

have had a really great long-term relationship with the Golden State Warriors and helping them find ways to bring game day energy into the app throughout the season.

Because it, you know, it's an event.

Like the game is actually an event.

So how do you keep people engaged and buying merch and coming back and reading stories about the players all throughout the year?

And music's been a piece of that.

For the health and wellness space, how are you guys actually integrating music into those apps?

So is it like while they're shopping for supplements or something?

Or is this like a radio of like sleep music that I could listen to?

It's more the latter.

So we have also started our own label called Feed Originals and it's science-backed music.

And what does that mean?

Science-backed means it's music that's been developed and composed for a very specific specific purpose other than just joy and entertainment.

So our

team has been working to figure out how do you translate the specifics of

getting a person from to, like a from to state in your brain, into instructions to give to a composer to say, I want a song that's really great for sleep.

I need a song that's really great for focus.

And

we're figuring it out together and have created a collection of music with those specific parameters, mainly for sleep, meditation, focus, and relaxation.

And are now

working with the health and wellness companies to make it really easy for them to suggest a particular song for their end user.

I'm actually really excited, future state, about

us getting a lot more feedback from the user to help curate.

So many of us are wearing wearables, tracking everything from heart rate to blood oxygen levels to you name it.

And I can definitely see a point in the not too distant future where my watch will say, hey, Lauren, your cortisol just spiked.

Go for a walk and listen to this playlist.

And I'll check back with you in 10 minutes.

Yep.

So I think that like the biometric feedback that we're starting to think about integrating into the music curation is exciting from the wellness standpoint.

Sign me up for that.

That is so fascinating.

Wow.

I know my one friend has the, is it aura ring?

I think it's called.

And so it recommends like, hey, after this time, don't have caffeine.

And I have a Garmin watch, which I love Garmin, you know, shout out to Garmin, but it doesn't do those kinds of recommendations.

And I'm like, oh man, how practical is the advice it gives?

It's like, oh, stop, stop drinking caffeine after this.

Or, you know, because you worked out too hard, you need to have.

a rest period for the next couple hours.

And I love it because it's so actionable.

It's not just data that you're like, what do I do with this?

this?

My sleep score was that.

What does that mean?

Right.

And I think it's so cool if you could tie that to other actions outside of, you know, rest or don't drink caffeine, but oh, hey, go listen to this playlist or here's this type of music that would really help if you're, you know, doing, I noticed, Lacey, that you run every morning.

Here's a playlist for running or, or, hey, you're trying to meet this certain pace goal

for your run.

And this playlist will help you keep, you know, on beat enough that you're going faster than if you were listening to this playlist, which would be slower.

So there's a lot of cool different ways that you could totally integrate that into wearables.

That's where we're headed.

That's where we're headed.

And that's where, I'll pause to insert AI into the conversation, but that's where you

that's where AI is just going to be really crucial and getting it right because there are so many variables from,

you know, like again, like heart rate, knowing your schedule, what's your personal preference for music.

Like there's so many variables.

but to be able to then map that to your daily journey and suggest music and other,

you know, non-addictive side effect free ways to

regulate your day, I think that's, it's really exciting.

And people are really receptive to it because self-optimization is just so popular right now.

Yeah.

Well, and I think we are so overwhelmed by so many other inputs that having something that is the opposite of that, that relaxes us, that creates space in our day is like so necessary.

I yes, I am excited for that side of the future and the evolution of biometrics.

Yeah.

And so, with AI, since you, you know, AI has entered the chat, thank you for bringing that in.

How is that affecting maybe like not just music curation, but music creation?

Are you guys using that at all for actually creating music?

We're not currently working with any generative AI companies.

There are loads of them.

There's some big settlements happening right now.

You may have seen in the news, there are a couple of companies who were trading their models on major label content, which is a no-no.

And so there's some

recalibrating, I guess, happening on that side.

We actually don't work with any generative AI.

I think

our generative music companies,

there is a place for it, for sure.

I think there's a whole segment of music called production or stock music, which is more anonymous.

It's not artist driven.

It's typically used in commercials or videos or on YouTube.

That segment is very concerned about generative AI because if it is not human driven, it's actually getting pretty good where you can't necessarily tell anymore.

Yeah.

I would say.

The music that we are truly drawn to and

resonate with emotionally is is artist driven.

And so it's more important than ever for artists to really focus on their personal brand.

And there's a lot of conversation around how to

make sure that you're not AI replaceable, I guess, from a music standpoint.

That we actually don't really play in that space at all.

We're leveraging AI for a lot of back-end

work, back office work, if you will.

So there's every song has a collection of data around it, the metadata, and it is notoriously not great,

often inaccurate.

There's many sources of truth for a particular song.

Things as basic as is it explicit or not.

That may be incorrect, and that's an important one.

So we use AI for metadata cleanup, for one, to make sure that our data, data hygiene is good.

And then what we're building now are, well, testing now are a bunch of different models to figure out how to leverage that clean data for better recommendations and better personalization.

Yep.

No, that makes total sense.

When I think about that, I think about my own Spotify use and how, like, years ago, how the recommendations would just not, not align at all, but I'm sure now they're doing similar metadata cleanup and their recommendations now are a lot closer.

And I've also noticed that when you skip things, it seems to know, oh, you're not into that right now.

So we're going to do something else.

There's like a lot of different, yeah, there's a lot of different ways that I've seen these, you know whether spotify or apple music using ai to help really curate something that's custom for you and i truly feel like the playlists that i have are like those are mine no one else can have the exact same copy because like it's so curated based off my weird listening habits yeah yeah i mean it's i still don't have it haven't done the work to separate out my kids listening from my spotify that's my imported because those those recommendations really throw rich in things but yeah their algorithms have gotten so much better.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We're also, you know, thinking about

AI-powered insights.

We have a lot of data.

We collect a ton of data on behalf of our customers and figuring out how to really turn that around to help tell the ROI story, to serve better music, to understand how we can super serve their customers.

That's a big focus for us right now, too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think you could do it in two ways too, right?

Like you can have it for your customers, of course, but even the listener might be interested in knowing, hey, last week you listened to this much music, just like the Spotify, you know, end of year recap, how they do that.

I would love it on a weekly basis.

Like, hey, this week you listen to this much stuff, or hey, you tend to listen to things that are a little bit more higher stress.

Maybe next week, here's a recommendation of what you could, you know, listen to instead.

So, I, yeah, I think there's a lot of really cool ways that you guys could be doing that.

And thinking about how we can get cross-platform listening data back to the end user.

So, you loved this playlist by

this instructor on this fitness app.

Here, we'll go ahead and just, here's a Spotify link.

Just,

you know, have that available to you.

So trying to find some more, it's such, they've traditionally, DSPs have been such walled gardens.

So trying to find some ways that we can help kind of create more of a seamless experience from the user perspective.

That makes sense.

That makes sense.

So I want to dive in a little bit more to how this can actually like brands could think about pulling this in.

But before I do, Rose, I want to open the mic to you.

Is there anything around sort of the science of music or personalization and AI that we haven't yet covered that you wanted to ask, Lauren?

The only thing that I wanted to ask about was the frequencies, I feel like, are super popular right now.

And I don't know much about, they just sound so

basic and like

distilled.

What is the, is it any different, like the licensing process around frequencies?

Or are those a little bit easier to play with?

You can't copyright a frequency, actually.

So it's not,

it is available to anybody to create that frequency if you have the equipment to do so.

So I think the licensing is not the challenge there.

It's more the creation and curation.

So what frequency are you using for what end state or end game?

So some are better for focus, some are for cognitive processing, others are for really getting into the low like theta frequencies to help you relax.

So

super interesting, very popular.

We're seeing them everywhere as well and starting to help our customers provide those to their customers with the information around it because it is, I think, for most folks a relatively new concept.

Right, that makes sense.

And do you guys work with any

B2B companies or ad agencies that are putting together campaigns and they want you guys to consult kind of, you know, how do we convey this emotion during this ad to this audience?

We do, yeah, we do.

We've been generally more focused on long-term customer engagement versus short-form commercials.

But that being said, especially with our label that we created, Feed Originals, that is so specific to particular use cases, that actually has gotten a really great reception from producers on the agency side because it's one of the challenges they have when they go to these big production libraries or yes, there are 50,000 tracks, but how do I find the good stuff?

Right.

Which one?

Yeah.

Yeah.

What's the good one?

And so

the curation aspect of what we do up front, this is purpose-driven, you know, working with a human that can help you find exactly what you need.

That's actually been,

it was sort of a surprise for us.

It was never an audience that we focused on, but we've had a lot of receptivity there.

Very cool.

Okay, that's all from me.

Back to you, Lacey.

Thanks, Rose.

Well, so getting into how brands can think about actually using this,

are there industries you think this would be best for?

And then industries you think this maybe is not something that you need to consider doing a music strategy?

I'd say it's less vertical specific and more about what you're trying to create, what experience you're trying to create for the customer.

So if long-term engagement and retention and sticky digital experiences make sense, then,

you know, probably it makes sense to consider it.

We actually are launching a new product in August specifically for social media and UGC.

Everyone, I think, is TikTok and Instagram have set an expectation about what should be available to a customer.

However, they spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year licensing music and have whole music teams working directly with the industry, which

most companies can't do.

And so we're sort of answering that call.

You know, we do a lot of primary consumer research and

the

impact of music in a social experience is

something we shouldn't take for granted.

77% of people say music impacts the enjoyment when they're viewing other people's content.

Like it's just, it's so baked into social sharing right now that I think anything social in UGC is sort of a no-brainer there.

We work with a lot of connected devices that are trying to take whatever it is, maybe it's just a speak, smart speaker, and take it, move it from a utility to an experience.

That's the opportunity with music is how do we actually turn this into something more emotionally resonant?

Well, and how that affects my emotional attachment to that brand now, right?

Because if I have this emotional experience over and over and over again, now suddenly I'm really tied to this brand and I don't want.

to change from them to someone else, right?

So it's kind of like, how do you continue to differentiate yourself in this market that is continuing to get more cluttered with other companies that might be doing something similar product-wise, but can't connect with the consumer in this emotional way that you're able to do.

And there's research around that too, showing that brand recall and emotional association go way up when

there is a caveat here when the music is congruent with your brand.

So making sure that it actually makes sense relative to every other touch point and everything that's out there.

So that's where a music strategy becomes really important.

Can you tell me a little bit more about the business metrics that are actually impacted directly by music that you've seen?

Absolutely.

Yeah, we work with a lot of subscription-based companies.

And for them, bottom line is really driven by retention and engagement.

Churn is such a big challenge in the industry.

And we find that music, when it's integrated properly, typically increases session time.

So they're spending longer in app, but most importantly, increases frequency and LTV.

So coming back more often and reduces churn.

Another

really big value is leveraging music as part of a premium upgrade.

So for if you have a freemium model and, you know, in addition to maybe just not getting ads, you can also get premium music or, you know, and, you know, using that as an additional carrot, we've seen that really huge impact on conversion.

So there's, I think mostly it's about retention, engagement, and conversion is where we see the value.

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What's the first step that someone should be taking?

So if I'm I'm like a product or content leader or marketing leader that I'm like, oh, I really kind of want to start to integrate music into my strategy.

Maybe I'm not fully committed yet to say, hey, feed, come do this for me, but I'm like toying with the idea.

Where do I start?

Well, there's two steps before you get to us.

So the first one is the who.

So really understanding who your listener is.

How much

demographic and psychographic data do you have around this person?

Because music is so intensely personal that it can be a disservice to your experience if it if it's the wrong music, right?

So starting with who is listening, the second piece is what are they trying to achieve?

Does this make sense for your experience?

Is your

user,

is it utilitarian?

They just need to buy a break and get out or is this is this escapism?

Is it relaxation?

Is it fitness?

Is it connection?

Is it social connection?

So

the what piece is really important to figure out if music makes sense.

Like, is there, can it help achieve this state that they're trying to get to?

And then, and then if you determine yes, that you know, you know your user and you think music could help them with their job and your product, then the how.

comes into it.

So, and that's where we come in.

How will you license?

How will you stream the

infrastructure to actually do it.

It's sort of like building a little mini Spotify within your app.

So, most companies

are not interested.

Yeah.

Not interested.

So, that's where we sort of integrate our pie to stream everything.

So, you know, it takes that developmental burden, I guess, off of the, off of the customer.

But I think, you know, as you think about

the experience, it's also

very, very functional.

Like, what does music serve a clear purpose tied to your product experience?

Does it reinforce the behavioral outcomes that you're trying to drive?

For sure.

And I think about this too with like hotels.

Like, if I'm, if I run a luxury hotel and I have this luxury experience I'm trying to create, it might make total sense for me to have this.

Like, this is our music feed.

This is how we, this is what we play in every hotel in the lobby.

Our whole music matches this.

Like, this is the entire experience that if you interact with our brand, this is the type of music that you're going to hear.

So I definitely think there's like certain brands that it makes total sense for in that way, where it's like a whole through line.

You're trying to create this really immersive experience, whether it's hotels, travel, exercise, spas, all those kinds of brand tips.

Total sense.

Yeah, retail, 100%.

Yeah.

And oftentimes those brands.

really invest a lot into their content strategy.

Aspirational content, you know, trying to really engage on a different level.

If it's

holiday in, then it's transactional and it needs to be the quickest point from A to cart checkout.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a little different.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and I think too, for like even fast food restaurants, I'm thinking about some chain restaurants that I, I feel like the experience would be a little bit more elevated.

You know, sure, it's fast food I'm trying to get in and out, but it still would feel a little more elevated if there was a more cohesive experience with what music is being played.

Because I've gone into restaurants before that I'm like, this is a totally different vibe because of the music than this other restaurant.

And it's the same exact, you know, name brand restaurant.

So it's interesting to me that it would be not that cohesive.

I also have a pet peeve around bad day partying.

So if you think of the day parts, you go into a restaurant or grab, you know, a bagel at 10 a.m.

and it's

techno.

No kidding.

Yeah.

It's that.

He's like, come on, guys, think about your audience and where, what mindset people are in.

So yeah, there's that piece of it too.

Do you guys do anything by geography?

So like changing it up.

Oh, we know in the south, they prefer this kind of interaction in music.

And in, you know, the northeast, it's this.

Like, do you guys segment by geography?

We can.

We often find, try to get more granular than that, just because there are people, it's, there's no homogenous region, right?

So we're really trying to get down to the user level.

There are certain acts that are more popular in certain regions.

And so, yeah, we definitely can.

And certainly for countries outside of of the US, localize and play local music as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you have any stories of negative music experiences that you've seen?

Maybe not with companies or brands that you work with, of course, but anything that you've been like, oh my gosh, they use this type of music and it was total mess up.

Like their whole campaign just failed because of the music choice.

Yeah.

You know, from one side of things, using music incorrectly and getting sued.

So that's that crumble cookies is actually sued

right now

by Warner Music.

So that's the infringement side is there's loads of examples of those.

On the specific campaign side,

to think about that, you know, we've worked with a company over the years that does a lot of music testing with the ad agencies and to actually try to avoid that.

So all the all the upfront user testing to not just gauge, do you like this?

How does it sound, but getting a lot more quantitative around is this getting the the brand impact across.

So I can't think of anything recent because I feel like folks are getting a lot smarter about what they put out there.

I'll have to do some research.

I think it'd be kind of fun to find a story that's like

totally, yeah, totally did not match the vibe.

Yeah.

Yes, I'm sure there are.

I did have another question, and then we can jump into the lightning round if that's okay.

I was thinking about my family, owns a used car dealership, and I was thinking about when you're making bigger, maybe at times more stressful or more luxurious investments, if there's any trend you've seen around that regarding tone or tempo.

Classical.

Classical.

Okay.

It still conveys

sophistication for a lot of folks.

And what I've seen or heard

more recently is

there are sort of modern classical quartets and trios who are

recording pop music but on stringed instruments.

Did you watch Bridgerton?

I did not know.

Bridgerton does that throughout all of their

seasons.

They play classical versions of modern pop songs.

So I just bought a car recently, an Audi, and I noticed in the dealership, that's what they were, like that was pretty consistently what they were playing in it.

I thought it was so smart.

Yeah.

That is so cool.

Okay, that's some practice.

That's some scrappy practical advice for me.

Thank you.

You bet.

Lauren, I mean, that actually drums up another thought in my head: is there maybe some quick tips we could give to listeners of like, if you're selling this, then this.

If selling this, then this, like just rough, loose guidelines of like high luxury item, classical music, you know, a little bit lower, cheaper end or whatever, this is what we would recommend.

I think it just depends on who comes back to the audience again.

So, what's what a what age are you selling to?

That generational divide when it comes to music is real.

It is legit.

And so, you know, if you can't do like individual personalization, just understanding the majority of your users and where they sit in that, it makes a big difference.

Boomers don't like techno.

I'm sorry to overgeneralize, but it's true.

Quote of the podcast.

Yeah.

Boomers don't like techno.

Love that.

All right, Ros, back to you for the lightning round.

Okay.

I only actually have a couple lightning round questions for you.

But one of them, and I think you kind of already answered this actually, was your biggest pet peeve when it comes to the way brands are using music.

And is it that

experience of walking into a coffee shop at like nine in the morning and you're hearing this, you know, rave happen around you?

I think it's the, it's anytime there's that dissonance, like, this is the wrong time of day for this, or why am I in this high-end boutique hearing, you know, bad 90s pop music?

What is it?

Yeah.

Anytime that, anytime there's dissonance, it really, obviously I'm very attuned to it and always looking for it.

But that's kind of the, it always throws me off.

It throws me off too, whenever I can tell it's like, this is the playlist of the person currently working here right now.

Like it's clearly this is the playlist of the barista at the coffee shop.

This is not the brands playlist by any means.

And that's something that we work with the brands with a lot: whether it's fitness instructors or, you know, individual like franchise owners, or how do you bring a little bit more?

A lot of brands are starting to think of it like freedom within a box.

Here's, you can choose your playlist, but it's from this list, essentially.

That makes sense.

Is there a particular industry that

you've noticed a trend in that has not prioritized this kind of musical strategy strategy that should be one of the first to jump at it?

Well, I mentioned health and wellness, and that's something that we are getting a lot of traction in, I would say, really just this year.

And so, it's taken a few years for,

well, part of it, to be honest, is monetization strategy.

So, there are tons of health and wellness apps that launched and just didn't know how to make any money.

And so, that's sort of getting more refined.

And we're also seeing more acceptance and more comfort from both the medical and the insurance fields around the opportunity for music to actually have positive impact.

So I think the economics in that industry sort of kind of shaking out a little bit better and then more

understanding from the medical side have led to.

Yeah, we were ready to support it two years ago, but I think it's just, it's feeling like things are coalescing there.

I feel like this is drawing up another thought in my head too, around how like healthcare could benefit so much from this.

Like if I went into a hospital and they actually had like soothing music playing versus it just be silent and like pristine, I would feel a lot more at ease going to visit, you know, maybe the dentist.

In fact, actually, I had this experience.

I got a tooth out recently, Lauren.

And I had this experience where I was like under happy gas and the doctor comes in or the nurse comes in and is like, hey, do you want me to play some music to relax you while we're doing this?

And I was like, what a nice offer.

And so she like used her phone.

I told her what I wanted to listen to and she played it for me while they were pulling out my twos, which is like a terrifying experience.

So, but I'm just wondering if like at a larger scale, maybe dentist offices, healthcare providers could benefit from that kind of thing.

1000%.

So there's so much research around how music can impact stress levels prior to surgery, better than valium, by the way.

The right music is better

than valium for stress levels prior surgery and then also post-op so there's this really great study out of the uk

at a children's hospital and the value of music in their recovery time so yes yes and yes

we are we we have worked with the mayo clinic in in the past several years around

providing better options for patients in room as well.

So, you know, there's maybe there's cable, it's crappy TV, you don't want to watch TV.

Like, can we,

how about a tablet with a bunch of music on it?

You don't need Wi-Fi, it's just built into the room.

So, trying to find ways to pull it in more, but there's a lot of data that supports it.

All right.

My last question for you, Lauren, is, is there an experience you've had recently as a customer that has really left you impressed?

The Audi experience, I have to say, was pretty solid.

Nobody likes to buy a car.

I was sort of doing it on my own, like early morning Saturday while my husband had the kid and, you know, just rushing around trying to figure this out.

And part of it was the salesperson, like he was actually really great.

But the overall experience, the seamlessness, the follow-up post-sale is really good, you know, for

a big purchase like that.

helping me figure out this some of the quirky UX and the audio or the

in-car system.

So yeah, you know, I would say overall, like the level, the right level of high touch, but not annoying.

Left to, that's not very positive, but like the right level of touch, I guess is

the way to say it.

That's just such a interesting recommendation or like a story because I feel like every time I've bought a car, it's been not fun.

Same.

No, I know.

That's that's that's top of mind for you.

Yeah, it was just, it was recently too, but it was the least,

the most positive experience I've i've had yeah yeah

yeah are you comfortable shouting out like the audi dealership in blanktown yes shout out to audi conquered california for a really great customer experience i'm sure they'll appreciate that awesome okay that concludes the lightning round Thank you, Rose.

Lauren, this has been so amazing.

If listeners are interested in learning more about feed media, where can they go to find out and maybe even connect with you?

Feed.fm and come find me on LinkedIn, Lauren PuffPaff.

There's no other Lauren Puffpaffs on LinkedIn.

I love that.

Awesome.

Thank you, Lauren.

It's been amazing.

Thank you.