The Brands Are Alive With The Sound Of Music

Abstract: Today, the presence of brands in media is greater than ever, making consumers consciously as well as unconsciously filter out the commercial white noise. The need for a stronger top of mind conditioning is increasing and being able to address consumers' emotions is a competitive advantage now needed in marketing. Music is a key marketing tool in doing so, but it comes at a high cost. The concept of sound-a-likes is a relatively new, cost efficient way of using music, but the effects on a brand and its equity when used in marketing purposes is yet unknown. To make it an utilizable tool its implications need to be studied further. The purpose of this thesis was to test if a sound-a-like could be equally efficient as the original song in affecting brand equity, in terms of brand association, perceived quality, purchase intention and word-of-mouth. Hypotheses were tested through a quantitative method with an experiment where the respondents were randomly presented with two different versions of a commercial in a digital survey; one with the sound-a-like and one with the original song, holding all else equal. The results clearly indicated that there was no significant difference in the effect on brand equity when using an original song compared to a sound-a-like. The implications of the result is that the same effect on brand equity can be achieved with a sound-a-like at a much lower cost than an original song, which is associated with royalty fees. This result assures marketers that sound-a-likes can be a reliable, cost efficient tool for incorporating music in advertising.