I wanted to talk about this since, over a year now! I was just not compiling it too well! Though all of us, young and old, males and females, suffer from this all over the place, and in Amman in particular, where hyper markets and brand stores and shops are spreading like mashrooms.
I have been always (in general) annoyed by the quality of music being aired in the background of shops around town. And we are talking about big fat shops, some very popular among people, some very rich and classy, bad music selected by some sassy sleazy employees most probably, and maybe sometimes even selected after an argue and stopped and yet changed again by another employee and so on, just like if they're in their own bedroom arguing which song is nicer!
Examples?!
Lets see,
most of the clothes and wears brandshops around sweifieh and mecca mall have a problem in the quality of music being aired in the background as it comes to measures of:
Sound Quality: despite most of them are equipped with high-tech sound systems, but they just get screwed up by missing up with the equalizers!
Music Quality: especially the music content, as a lot of them air “dirty versions” of hiphop and R'n'B songs. This was observed even in stores where different ages and classes of people would regularly shop, just like “Max” and “Centerpoint” for example, as well as depending on the employees tastes!
Employees Taste Vs Brand Taste: Probably this is the cause of all the problems, especially the one listed above. As some employees, just out of the “cool” deep inside them, decide to have an un-cleaned version of an album by eminem, and that album happen to be also an underground unreleased one (cool enough out of his coolness!), and have that in .... a children wear shop!!!! or even a young ladies accessories shop! Or some Linkin Park in an old ladies formal wear shop from an italian brand!!!!
See, this is how bad things might go in some shops. And of course, things vary just depending on the employee on the shift and his/her mood!
Sound Volume: Loud Volume in particular. In some shops you can just feel that you are in a club!! well, ok, maybe the clothes at Cool Cat or Pull and Bear at city mall are just the ones for clubbing, but you should SHOUT to tell one of the employees about ur size!!!!!
I just can't count the cases and shops of improper sound/shop combinations around town. And the bad soundtracks of our shopping experience.
There are some positive things lately around and about, for example, and after
AZADEA group opened Virgin Mega store in City Mall – Amman. They seemed to supply most of the brandshops ran by AZADEA group with precompiled music collections and mixes. That was easy to observe as you can even get to hear the same music combination at more than one shop ran by AZADEA, and you can even get to guess what track is next :D
Cozmo supermarket has also a predefined music combination, integrated with offers announcements, and even closing hours announcements being aired in the background, all of this at a controlled volume, and a well selected list of tracks that cope with the place's atmosphere and customers' expected music genres.
Radio is VERY absent from our shopping soundtracks. And I mean VERY! As the only place where i have mentioned to have radio being aired in the background is Al Ahlyyah Plaza Superstores in Shmeisani, they always have Mood FM on.
Even Smartbuy, who has a weekly show Live from the store on Radio Rotana, DOESN'T have Radio Rotana on, they even have a totally different music genre aired even!!
Why aren't radio stations marketing people going on this track!! or is it that they consider marketing related only to have sponsorships and how much to repeat ads per hour! Hint hint Strategic long-term marketing plans!
Even in small local radio stations in europe, just like the ones in the town I live in romania, some radio stations get relations with some local supermarkets to have their radio station aired in their shop (or shops in case of a chain of 3 supermarkets for example), and in return the radio station guarantees not having any marketing deals with other competitive supermarkets.
This is just an example of 10s others that can be implemented in getting more listener-ship and presence for a certain station or another in the market. Like for example having door radio stickers announcing the customers that they can enjoy their shopping experience along with Radio XYZ. (much more smarter than having a simple computer printed ad on 5 shopping carts i guess!). Some radio stations can make efforts enriching the shops sound equipments just for the sake of having the radios in that shop fixed on their radio station! (hint hint: Most of our lovely jordanian Radios' transmissions cannot be received inside most of the Malls)
I mean! Can't those radio guys just scratch their minds or what! There is a lot of potential in the market since the listener ship as
statistics show or still less than 50% on daily basis... and can't they just benefit of the fact that ads in printed media are not reaching everyone like radio, despite the fact that audio-ads are still 10 times less than printed ads!
I guess i will open my own consultations house to teach those guys in the market my stupid ideas and charge them some grands! And on the side have a radio station where i would implement my ideas and rock all the other stations down :D
customers, especially taking into consideration the place where this branch is located and the concentration of students in the area. So they have installed several PCs with Free internet :) also, Free wireless will be available soon.
