Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Identity-based consumer responses to music in marketing contexts

The use of music in marketing campaigns is ubiquitous. Frequently, brands choose music that they think will be personally meaningful to consumers so that positive associations about the music may spillover to the brand, itself. Yet some anecdotal evidence suggests that such a strategy can sometimes backfire. The proposed conceptual framework of consumer responses to music explains the process through which consumers interpret and respond to music which is related to their personal autobiographical experiences. We propose that the more music is associated with autobiographical experiences, the more a consumer will develop a sense of ownership of the music, and subsequently, the more likely that they will make a determination about whether they will psychologically “license” the use of the music to the brand. This effect is proposed to be conditional on the appropriateness of the music usage. The framework then traces such licensing to a series of consequences: identity outcomes, music outcomes, and identity-related brand outcomes. We conclude by outlining directions for future research.