Market Share: A Blog to Stimulate Business

I enjoy all kinds of music. From the music I grew up with to what is popular today, I can appreciate all styles and formats. I have a degree in music and have taught music in the public school system. I have performed music in classical concert venues and have been the keyboardist and backup singer in a rock and roll band. I have perfect pitch and can identify most popular music by a mere snippet of its introduction. Give me soulful rhythm and every part of me will be moving to the beat. In fact, I’ve been playing music by ear since I was four years old. When it comes to music, I am pretty open-minded.

Except when it comes to websites. Whether it’s the tinny quality from my computer speakers or the fact that I have been rattled out of my silent concentration by some unexpected sound, I can’t turn it off fast enough.

» Don’t misunderstand me. Music has been an essential part of marketing on radio and TV for years and for the most part, it is used quite effectively. It’s understood that if we don’t like what we are listening to, we can change the station, or turn it off. Furthermore, we’ve all gotten fairly good at tuning out what we don’t like, even if we still hear it. Somehow, for me, music on a website seems like a violation of the intimate (and quiet) relationship I have with my computer.

Recently, American Express introduced a snippet of music to their welcome page where I access my account online, similar in impact to the abbreviated melody/chime that plays every time you open Internet Explorer. Just a couple of innocent notes. Yet, every time I hear it, I find myself in a state of extreme irritation. Thankfully it stops playing before I have to do anything about it. Maybe it’s because it startles me; maybe it’s too loud. Maybe it’s just something I’m not familiar with. Perhaps if it were a tune I recognized, I’d probably spend the rest of the day with the song stuck in my head, which can also be annoying.

I must say that there are exceptions to the rule. A beautiful website I came upon for a chain of local restaurants had several choices of background music which were probably created in Apple’s Garage Band. Rocking back and forth between a couple of bluesy chords, punctuated by a tasteful drumbeat, every one of the choices was different and each distinctively appealing. Funny how you either like something or you don’t.

That tells me that the use of music on a website is risky business unless you give the visitor complete control. The sound of silence may be all that’s required. Or desired!

Tags: use of music on a website

This entry was posted on Monday, December 29th, 2008 at 5:21 pm and is filed under Marketing with Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.