Page 131 - AIT0917_Titelfinal_Layout 1

in the afternoon. In the future, the system shall even be able to react to the number of people in the store and the weather. Once the
rules are defined, playlists for the store’s acoustic ambience are automatically generated from the fund of more than 70,000 tracks.
A harmonious sound shall be created for both customers and staff, which characterises the respective brand and generates an iden-
tity. While a well thought out music selection can encourage customers to stay for a longer period of time and thus shop more items,
it can have a motivating effect on the staff and contribute to a positive working climate. For professional instore music, a brand should
take into account 50 to 100 Euros per month and per store, with a good sound system being indispensable for the desired effect.
The future of audio branding

Since January 2016, HearDis! has been involved in an ambitious, exciting research project. It is our intention to explore and develop
the future of audio branding. In the project ABC_DJ – Artist to Business to Business to Consumer Audio Branding System, which is
funded by the EU, we work on software tools, which in an automated process recognise brand-relevant pieces of music. Using this
software, brands and audio branding agencies can via an algorithm generate playlists matching the brand world and create instore
music, which regarding its quality comes close to the live performance of a DJ. In the context of the Horizon 2020 programme of the
EU, this project is funded with a total of 3.5 million Euros. Apart from us, another six partners from five European countries are
involved in this project. The cooperative research and innovation project is expected to last for three years until the end of 2018.
During these three years, scientific findings from music impact research are transferred to software programming and supporting dig-
ital tools. One of the objectives is to make acoustic branding independent from US players, who dominate the market with North
American chart music. ABC_DJ ought to support the European creative industry in global competition. So, it is also about Europe’s
cultural identity and the access to business models for European artists. In the first part of the project, 3,500 people from three Porsche Store in Berlin
European countries were questioned in an online survey. Thereby the aim was to draw standardisable conclusions about the per-
ceived music from musical-acoustic properties. In the first test series, the test persons evaluated 183 music excerpts from 61 different
musical styles. The music tracks should be categorized according to an abstract conceptual scale. The study also considered the social
and cultural background of the test person. The results are incorporated in the first layouts of a statistical prediction model. This
model shall be used to identify brand properties in pieces of music. This happens on the basis of the song’s acoustic characteristics
in connection with the listener’s socio-cultural context. In collaboration with internationally acknowledged audio branding experts,
a technical vocabulary comprising 51 brand attributes was created. This so-called General Music Branding Inventory (GMBI) is the
first multi-lingual and scientifically sound inventory in this area. GMBI made it possible to give the audio branding world a common
language so that suitable branding strategies can be communicated between agencies, labels and customers without misunderstand-
ings. The interplay of genre-spanning music appreciation, the sense of trends, a deep knowledge of music culture and the algorithm
for categorisation can help unknown artists market the music and make music contents more easily utilisable for brands and their
cooperation partners, such as interior designers and architects to create, for example, instore music.

WIR INSZENIEREN MARKEN

Unsere skalierbaren Messe- und Showroomkonzepte kombinieren erstklassiges
Design mit spannender Kommunikation. Als global aufgestellter Dienstleister
realisieren wir Projekte weltweit und ressourcenschonend. www.etglobal.com