How Music & Moods Move the Needle with Consumers

Here’s a fun fact: 78% of listeners ages 18+ say music improves their mood.  

Privacy-forward mood and activity targeting can contextualize your ads to make them timelier, more effective, and more memorable. And in our most recent webinar, Discover How Music and Moods Move the Needle with Consumers, we showed exactly how and why contextual targeting is so effective.

Here’s a quick overview of what our experts, Casey Fandacone, Manager, Sales Marketing; Alexandra Carlson, Senior Manager, Data & Identity Ad Product Marketing; and Katelyn Mueller, Associate Creative Director, Studio Resonate, covered:

• Proprietary insights on how streaming audio shapes listeners’ experiences—and how they feel about the ads they interact with in the process

• Proof that our leading targeting adtech bolsters the timing, delivery, and perception of your messaging

• Data-backed strategies on how to create campaigns that speak to listeners moods in an authentic, action-provoking way

Ready for the full breakdown? Check out the webinar recording below.

Looking for a top-level highlight, instead? We’ve got that, too. Pop those headphones in to hear some of the key moments from our presentation below.

Music ties into our emotions and memories.

Highlight: “Music is a very personal experience. When we listen to a piece of music from an important time in our lives, we almost seem to travel back to that moment. And it's this pairing of music with an event that creates a powerful memory trigger. Music and memory are very interlocked… Music just really ties into our emotions and memories in that way.” - Katelyn Mueller

Mood-based listening is on the rise.

Highlight: “On Pandora, we have over 50 wellness- and mood-based stations. And we are seeing people listen to those more and more in order to amplify how they're feeling. In the past year alone, our wellness station saw a 15% increase in year-over-year growth —further proof that mood-based listening is definitely on the rise.” - Casey Fandacone

Mood targeting is insulated from signal loss and privacy concerns.

Highlight: “At SiriusXM Media, we know that mood is going to be influencing receptivity for our advertising brands, based on 20+ years of observing listener habits and aggregating insights tied to real-time data... Music is really used to assist in getting the listener into that right mindset, or congruently trying to use that as a change agent—getting someone from a state of angsty to a state of focused, or getting someone from energetic to chill. Coupling that together with our longevity in the market and our world-class music analysts, we're in a super unique position to offer contextualized targeting solutions in a time when signal loss and user privacy is truly an ever-growing concern for the industry. Contextual mood targeting is insulated from both of those things, because they're tied to a song's music profile, which is delivered to a persistent, logged-in user. So, neither signal loss nor privacy is really a concern when it comes to our mood targeting offering.” - Alexandra Carlson

Congruency is crucial.

Highlight: “When things aren't congruent, we tend to avoid them. So if you apply these concepts to mood targeting, and you build out sounds and music in your audio advertising that work congruently with the mood of the music that the consumer's listening to, then the consumer’s experience of the brand becomes much more congruent and, therefore, much more powerful. But at the same time, when you're thinking about being congruent to the mood, you also want to stay true to your brand. You want to make sure that your ad aligns with your brand voice and brand character. So if you have a sonic logo, this can be a little bit of a shortcut. Consider if there are ways to adapt it to fit different moods or genres. It will give you a lot more flexibility in that way. Think about the McDonald's sonic logo and how they've really adapted it throughout their advertising. The instrumentation and the genres can change quite a bit over the years and across campaigns, and that can help it be more flexible to address different needs. But the important thing is that if the sound of your brand isn't congruent, it can have a negative effect on brand building.” - Katelyn Mueller

Factor the mindset into your messaging.

Highlight: “Incorporating music and sound design into your ads, so long as they're congruent, will have a huge impact—70% of listeners say that they prefer ads with background music and sound effects, and 65% of listeners also prefer ads that are relevant to what they're listening to. So you also want to make your creative contextual when you're leaning into these different targeted moods. Think about how you can align your different offers or talking points, or even the scenes that you build in your creative. The messaging that you're going to prioritize for a chill mindset should probably be different from a celebratory one, because of that differing listener mindset that you want to reach. And again, this all also comes back to that idea of congruence. It's a very, very potent concept. And once you get into the habit of considering it, your creative is going to make a much larger impact.” - Katelyn Mueller

So now you know—combining the power of music with mood targeting is one of the most effective ways to connect with listeners, improve brand perception, and create a favorable ad experience. Ready to capitalize on the power of contextual targeting? Let’s talk.