Dec 11, 2008

Holiday music sensitive to economic stressBy APForbes.com

NEW YORK (AP) – Few people think as much about holiday music as Leanne Flask, whose job is to select every song played in the stores of Swedish fashion retailer H&M, Williams-Sonoma and Nordstrom, among other retailers.

Flask, vice president of music design for branding company DMX, calls her products music designs – not playlists – and said they are extensively researched and tailored for each retail chain.

“It’s so much more detailed than what people envision,” Flask said.

For example, the music blasting in Abercrombie & Fitch stores is targeted very specifically to appeal to teen shoppers, although it may grate on their parents.

Sometimes the strategy is counterintuitive. With holiday shopping more stressful than ever this year, Flask said her team discouraged retailers from sticking to traditional holiday fare. Songs like Harry Connick Jr.’s “When My Heart Finds Christmas,” she explained, bring to mind nostalgic images of families opening presents around their Christmas trees.

When many people can’t afford mounds of presents and trips to visit family, those traditional songs might stir some gloomy feelings.

Instead, she recommended choosing “happy” songs, which she said is not as simple as it seems. A single song may have positive connotations for one person, but not for another, she said. The definition also changes by demographic.

“For a brand like Chanel, ‘happy’ is a much more sophisticated sound than for H&M,” she said.

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