Music Inc. 2019: Music's Role In Customer Experience

Industry experts at a panel discussion shared insights on how music can enhance retail brand experiences at Music.Inc’19 event

Music Inc.2019 an event that covers the music industry OTT music industry and brands in collaboration with artist took place at Mumbai on 21st June 2019 at JW Marriott, Juhu. The first panel session of the day was on the topic: Music Enhancing Retail Brand Experiences. The panellist had industry experts like Harvinder Singh Batia, Founder, Radiowalla, Petal Chandhok, Partner, Trust Legal, Yuri Dokter, Founder, DJ Monitor and Sharad Puri, General Manager, JW Marriott. The moderator for the session was Sameet Sharma, VP& Business Head, Viacom18.

Speaking about how music is helping a retail customer in their buying experience, Harvinder Singh Batia, Founder, Radiowalla said, “Having worked in the music and the retail industry. Music is essential in a retail atmosphere. There has been enough research that has shown that in a retail environment three things to capture the consumer are: 1. The product, 2. The sound of that retail store and 3.Does it resonate with the product being sold or not. Also, the smell of the store should be welcoming.”

Batia said that anyone who is coming into the store is coming from a chaos environment. Once you enter the store you need to make the customer feel comfortable. If you are going in for a product that you want the customer to spend more time than the music has to be good. In any retail experience more than shopping it is the checkout experience”, remarked Batia.

When you are in a store you play songs and you need a licence for that. Just to segregate that is when you are playing songs at home for that you don’t need licences, the moment you play this in a public place it becomes entertainment. Because the one who is playing it will benefit from it commercially. Right now if you look at licensing there are bodies placed like the PPL (Phonographic Performance Limited), we have ISRA, (Indian Singers Rights Society) which consists mostly of singers. Then there is IPRS (Indian Performance Rights Association) where all the performers and composers are included. These are the societies that charge royalties from these third-party platformers. These third parties claim to hold these rights but of course, right now there is ambiguity and each artist claim to have rights but there is a lot of conflict on that.

- Petal Chandok (Partner, Trust Legal)

The licensing system in India is not in place but people end up spending more because they want to be extra cautious.

How does music help to create a good atmosphere in a hotel environment? Puri, General Manager, JW Marriott said, “In a hotel environment the ambience we create matters and music plays a large role. If you would go to our lounge the music that is played at 7 pm is different than 11 pm and that helps in our food and beverage sale. Each area and space in the hotel requires different music. It has to be very different and unique based on the area. We have a team that curates the music and we give a brief of what should be played where. We take licence and royalties seriously because at the end of it the artist should get due recognition.”

Dokter, Founder, DJ Monitor speaking about research and data said, “Through technology and data we are able to create transparency. And that is required to provide fair licensing as well as the correct distribution of rights to artist and composers."

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