The Strategy Behind Brand Sound: Why Consistency Beats Personal Taste

In retail and hospitality, music is almost always present. Walk into a café, a fashion store, a hotel lobby. There will be something playing.

The assumption is that as long as it sounds pleasant, it is doing its job.

But is that really true?

We spoke to Magnus, Head of Music Development at Startle, about how brands translate identity into sound, why inconsistency quietly damages perception, and why music needs structure as much as creativity.
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Q: For those unfamiliar with your role, what does a Head of Music Development actually do?

It is slightly more strategic than people expect.

I sit between our sales team, our software developers, and our curators. So my role is partly commercial, partly creative, and partly operational.

When a brand comes to us, I am involved in understanding who they are, how they position themselves, and what their stores or venues look and feel like. I also aim to understand what they are trying to achieve commercially.

From there, we translate that into a music brief. That brief becomes a blueprint. The blueprint becomes playlists that evolve throughout the day and across the estate.

What I find most interesting is that you are not just picking songs. You are shaping perception, as well as influencing how people interpret a space. That is where it becomes fascinating.

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Q: You often talk about music as a brand communication channel. What do you mean by that?

Marketing teams will spend hours refining copy. They will debate the tone of a single headline. They will carefully select imagery to reflect their brand.

Music is present for far longer than most of those touchpoints. In a restaurant, it might play for two or three hours while someone is dining. In retail, it runs continuously throughout the day.

If the sound does not align with the brand, there is friction.

There is an academic concept called musical fit. The stronger the perceived fit between the music and the brand, the stronger the perception of quality and value.

When it feels intentional, customers process the space as more premium, more cohesive, more considered. When it feels generic, the brand feels generic.

That is why I see music as communication. It is constantly signalling something about who you are.

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Q: Many multi-site brands let individual stores control their own playlists. Why is that risky?

Because personal taste does not scale.

In a single venue, you might get lucky. The manager has good instincts. The music feels appropriate.

Across 50 or 100 locations, that approach fragments quickly.

You end up with different interpretations of the same brand. One site leans into upbeat commercial tracks, another prefers acoustic covers, and a third defaults to whatever is trending on a streaming platform.

None of it is necessarily wrong. But it is inconsistent.

Consistency is one of the biggest drivers of brand trust. If a customer walks into two different locations and the atmosphere feels disconnected, it chips away at that trust.

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Q: Is the problem usually bad music, or something more subtle?

The more common issue is the middle ground.

Safe, generic playlists. Music that could belong to any brand. It fills the silence, but it does not reinforce identity.

Brands often think they are unique. In reality, we see variations of similar positioning over and over again. Music is an opportunity to differentiate. But only if it is approached intentionally.

When it is left to chance, you lose that edge.

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Q: How do you actually translate a brand into sound?

It starts with learning the brand properly.

We look at their visual assets. Are they minimal and clean? Warm and textured? Industrial and bold? We look at their tone of voice. Are they playful? Serious? Approachable?

Even physical materials matter. Wood, brick, steel, soft lighting. These textures suggest musical equivalents.

For example, a café with a cosy, warm aesthetic might suit more organic, human instrumentation. Soul, softer indie, something that feels analogue rather than electronic.

It sounds intuitive, and in many ways it is. But that intuition is built on years of experience across different environments. 

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Q: Where does data fit into that process?

The way I see it, human instinct leads and data refines.

Once playlists are built, we analyse performance. Are certain tracks not working as expected? Are there patterns emerging around energy levels or customer flow?

We use data as a pruning tool, which helps us trim the edges and keep everything aligned.

In our industry, you tend to see extremes. Either it is entirely data-driven, or entirely creative and slightly vague. We believe the strength is in combining both.

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Q: With AI becoming more sophisticated, could this eventually be automated?

AI is useful. It can group tracks by tempo or instrumentation very effectively.

What it cannot do is understand lived experience.

Our curators have spent time in these spaces. They know what a busy Saturday evening in a bar feels like. They understand the shift in mood at 3pm in a retail store.

An algorithm has not been in those spaces. It has processed data about them.

Music carries cultural meaning, and that meaning shifts over time. In my experience, staying ahead of that requires human judgement.

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Q: You mentioned earlier that consistency builds trust. Can music really influence that?

Absolutely.

If a brand looks premium but sounds chaotic, there is a disconnect. If it positions itself as modern but plays dated tracks, customers notice, even subconsciously.

Sound is one of the few elements that touches every visitor.

When it is aligned, every location feels unmistakably on-brand. That repetition reinforces identity. Over time, that builds equity.

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Q: Finally, what is one misconception you wish retail and hospitality leaders would drop?

The idea that music is just background.

Most brands understand it needs to be there. Fewer understand it needs structure.

Music is subtle, but it is powerful.

If you treat it with the same strategic attention as visual branding or copy, it becomes an asset. If you ignore it, it becomes noise.

In physical spaces, atmosphere is not a finishing touch but a vital part of the product. And music plays a bigger role in that than most people realise.