Industrial Management

MUSIC WHILE YOU WORK: Is there any evidence that it has a beneficial effect on production?
Dave Grayston
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Dave Grayston, (1974),"MUSIC WHILE YOU WORK", Industrial Management, Vol. 74 Iss 6 pp. 38 - 39
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MUSIC WHILE
YOU WORK
Is there any evidence that it has a beneficial
effect on production?
by DaveGrayston
BACKGROUND music has become so much
a part of our lives that we often don't even
notice when it is being played. And that,
paradoxically, is exactly the way it should be.
The business of supplying background
music is large and complex, and at first sight it
is full of surprising complications and contra-
dictions. The first of these is the fact that back-
ground music is totally different from any
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other kind of music.
Unlike rock music or classical music it is
not meant to be really listened to. Unlike the
popular music of the first 60 years of this
century it does not rely on lyrics for any part
of its appeal. And unlike the soundtrack of a
film or TV show it is not designed to comple-
ment a superior image.
Yet background music does have one thing
in common with all these — the realisation
that music is a profoundly useful tool when
you're dealing with people. It produces
emotional, and sometimes even physical
effects, whether we like them or not. Have you
ever found yourself tapping your foot in time
to music that holds not the slightest interest
for you and which you perhaps didn't even
notice till you realised that your body had?
That kind of effect is commonplace, but it
brings home the basic theory behind the
provision of background music, which is that
the effects are desirable in the majority of
cases.
Of course there are many differing forms of
musical wallpaper, and some are much more
effective than others. But they do generally
have one thing in common — the desire to
reap the benefits without being lumbered with
any of the drawbacks.
But it's much more easy to define the
objective than it is to fulfill it — especially
since this country has some of the most
powerful copyright laws in the world and one
of the strongest Musicians Unions.
The first thing to realise is that the music
must suit the situation in which it is to be used.
There is no such thing as general purpose
background music, and the reason is the
wrong music can produce effects which totally
negate the object of the exercise.
The March of the Toreadors would go
down like a lead balloon in a Chapel of Rest,
whilst the Rustle of Spring is hardly likely to
be audible in a machine shop.
The name of the background music game is
controlled stimulation of the listener. It's no
coincidence that boutiques almost invariably
have pop tunes playing in the background.
38
cality like the legal ban on lending or re-selling
books or taping tunes off the radio. The
Society employs teams of inspectors, and has
no scruples about enforcing the law.
The stimulation that music provides in the
boutique is obvious, and the music is
obtrusive because it needs to be. But the
variety of tasks accomplished by providing
music is the key factor.
The boutique method encapsulates many of
the advantages that are persuading office and
factory managers all over the country to
install background music. The principal one is
that it seems to keep people happy.
This music is deliberately designed to be un-
obtrusive, because its task is to shore up the
concentration of listeners rather than attract
It's a good example because it not only illus-
trates some of the benefits, but also many of
the drawbacks. The customers are mainly
young women, and the music helps to put
them at their ease. But it has the other
important hidden functions. Since
competition is intense in the boutique field,
the customer is likely to have a choice of four
or five shops, all within easy walking distance.
So, to make the customer buy she must be
encouraged not only to prefer one boutique to
another, but also to spend some time brows-
ing around. Few women go into such a shop
with a concrete idea of what they want. Even if
they do, something else may take their eye
while they are there. Therefore, the longer
they stay the more likely they are to buy.
But the music does more than put them at
their ease. The recreation of many of the
boutique's customers is dancing in discos to
the latest sounds. The presence of those
sounds where they shop makes them sub-
consciously link the clothes they are seeing
and trying on with the atmosphere in which
they are likely to be worn. And anything
which does that can boost sales.
BOUTIQUES
Last, but not least, comes the husband or
boyfriend. Most female boutiques hold little
for him apart from admiring the patrons and
staff. If he is restless he is likely to leave,
taking the customer with him. The music
provides something to occupy his mind, and
often presents a real incentive to stay.
All of this may sound far-fetched, but the
fact is that many boutiques are now installing
free juke boxes stacked with current hits. The
shopper and her companion have the incen-
tive not only of hearing the music, but of
choosing it. It sounds corny, but it works.
The drawbacks can also be considerable.
Playing a record over a stereo, providing a
cassette sound system, or even simply playing
Radio One in the shop is technically illegal
unless copyright dues are paid to the
Performing Rights Society for each song
played. And it's not an unenforceable techni-
INDUSTRIAL MANAGEMENT
 and hold their attention. There is no doubt
that it works.
FRANCHISE
To find out just how it does what it does
Industrial Management spoke to Stan Lea,
the marketing manager of Planned Music
Ltd. The company, which is part of Sir Lew
Grade's ATV empire, is the British franchise
holder for the American Muzak Corporation,
whose name has become synonymous with
background music.
Lea's approach to his sales task is hard-
headed and practical, because he believes that
the managers who form his market are not
interested in abstractions, just cost benefits.
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JUNE 1974
"We've never pretended to be in the entertain-
ment business," he says. "We're providing
music for people whose work produces
boredom, monotony and tension but
demands concentration for far longer periods
than would normally be necessary.
"Music as entertainment is based on a
marketing philosophy of dynamic interest —
you've got to make people stop and listen, and
the music business knows how to make people
do that. We are offering the alternative of the
same emotional stimulation, because music
does stimulate people whether they are
listening or not, without those things which
are put in to make it entertaining."
Put like that the whole process sounds very
cold-blooded, and to a certain extent it is. But
it's no more cold-blooded than building a nice
new canteen in the twin hopes of attracting
labour and making a profit on the food that
would otherwise be bought outside. Lea sees
his service as a contribution to the working
environment almost like air conditioning.
"We recognising the stimulating elements
in music and organising them," he says. "Of
course we have to impose certain limitations
on ourselves aesthetically, but in general the
level of investment in creating the music has a
direct bearing on how it sounds, and anybody
who listens to our stuff won't find it
unpleasant for musical reasons."
Just in case you're not convinced that back-
ground music, or "functional music" as Lea
prefers to euphemise it, is big business,
perhaps you ought to know that at any one
time the Muzak library has between 6,000 and
7,000 tunes held on tape ready for use. About
200 different arrangers work for the
Corporation, and titles are recorded and
added at a rate of 700 a year.
STUDIO
The music is made up into 15 minute
programs, and sent to the clients over leased
GPO lines from a central studio at Planned
Music's Northolt, Middlesex, HQ. The whole
business is very scientific. "No-one else",
claims Lea, "classifies their music library in
terms of the effect it has on people. There are
four parameters in our music, rhythm, tempo,
instrumentation and orchestra size, and by
varying these you can get an almost limitless
range of effects.
The music, which is divided into separate
services for offices and factories because the
noise levels are different, goes out in a planned
program to all clients simultaneously. It plays
for 15 minutes, alternating with periods of
silence. Lea says that each segment is designed
to produce a "lifting factor" to carry the
listeners over the next 15 silent minutes.
Playing the music constantly would just lead
to total sameness and an overfull musical
appetite.
Planned Music realised fairly soon after it
began trading in 1960 that the sound system
was at least as important as the music in
achieving the right effects. Now it refuses to
supply the service unless its own criteria for
equipment are met.
The company supplies sound systems and
advises on their installation, and the equip-
ment is not meant solely for replaying music.
It's a waste of resources to have a sound
system installed but refuse to use it for public
address, says Lea. But the music is the critical
factor. "Once the system's right for the music
it will be right for anything else."
EFFECT
But the 64 dollar question is whether back-
ground music can be proved to have a
beneficial effect on production where it is
used. A number of surveys, carried out mainly
in the States, suggest that it does.
In 1962 a management consultancy called
Case and Company carried out a test of the
effects of Muzak on productivity at the
Brooklyn factory of the American Machine
and Foundry Co.
The results bore out the claims of the
suppliers, and the report put it like this. "The
study discloses significant improvements in,
production performance. The production
factors studied indicated a 2.8 per cent rise
in the efficiency of the test department, a 4.1
per cent increase in the efficiency of 40
workers whose performance could be
minutely measured, and a 31.2 per cent
increase in the promptness of those workers."
A more recent test at a Black & Decker
plant at Hampstead in Maryland produced a
net figure of 2.8 per cent increase in overall
productive efficiency, and those figures are
supported by large amounts of academic
evidence in which researchers have reached
the same type of conclusion.
But how much does such a service cost?
Planned Music works only on a contract
basis, and boasts that its terms offer total
flexibility. Says Lea: "For an average client
the sound system, installation and main-
tenance cost, line costs, music and performing
rights fees would come to about £25 a month.
He pays us and we look after the rest."
He reckons that any factory or office with
upwards of 40 employees can justify this
system, and also that it is useful in boosting
productivity and reducing turnover in small
groups of key staff, such as punch operators
for computers. Birmingham Corporation
agrees with him there. It has had Muzak in its
computer centre since 1965, and claims that it
has cut staff turnover.
There's not doubting the fact that back-
ground music can offer concrete benefits in
industrial life — and there's also no doubt that
you could be in for trouble if those in
competition for your staff realise it first.
39
 This article has been cited by:

1. Geoffrey P. Lantos, Lincoln G. Craton. 2012. A model of consumer response to advertising music. Journal of Consumer
Marketing 29:1, 22-42. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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