Tag Archives: Marketing

Global designs for 78 RPM record sleeves

78 RPM sleeve from India

The 78 RPM record was originally a means of commerce intended to make money. When recording engineers were dispatched across the globe to capture sounds and voices, there was no intention to preserve the recordings that they created. The point, at the time, was to attract as many customers as possible to buy phonograph machines. It was largely an accident that these recordings turned out to be quite meaningful for diasporic populations who had moved away from their homelands. Such recordings became essential to people who otherwise would not have had access to their music, and they purchased gramophones and records to feel closer to homeland and as accompaniment to ritual feasts, births, weddings, and other cultural events.

78 RPM sleeve from Burma

Sales increased as immigrants crossed the oceans. Record production was kept cheap. Discs were disposable and longevity was not central to their design, and so were the first 78 RPM sleeves, which were plain, cheap paper with no printing. Many record companies and store owners eventually realized the potential of using the sleeves as advertisements for the recording (and other items). From those early recordings, we learn that the information on the sleeve did not necessarily have to refer to the record it held. Some simply were a shoutout for the record company’s brand, for accessories, and gramophones. Others mentioned the company’s roster of musical talent.

Below is Reto Muller’s collection of global 78 RPM record sleeves of the early 20th century. Learn more in “A short tour of global 78 RPM records and sleeves” by Reto Müller (ARSC journal 54.1 [Spring 2023] 123–129). Find it in RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text.

78 RPM sleeve from Finland
78 RPM sleeve from Peru
78 RPM sleeve from China

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Filed under Mass media, Visual art, World music

Music and wine choice

 

If you plan to welcome the new year with a ritual libation, you might consider whether subliminal factors are at play.

In an experiment, French and German music was played on alternate days from an in-store display of French and German wines over a 2-week period. French music led to French wines outselling German ones, whereas German music led to the opposite effect on sales of French wine.

Responses to a questionnaire suggested that customers were unaware of these effects of music on their product choices. The results may be discussed in terms of their theoretical implications for research on music and consumer behavior and their ethical implications for the use of in-store music.

This according to “The influence of in-store music on wine selections” by Adrian C. North, David J, Hargreaves, and Jennifer McKendrick (Journal of applied psychology LXXXIV/2 [April 1999] pp. 271–76).

Below, what would you pair with the German-born French composer Jacques Offenbach’s GlouGlouJe suis le vin (Glug! Glug! I am the wine)?

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Filed under Curiosities, Food

Synesthesia with wine

In an experiment, 250 adults were offered a glass of wine in return for answering a few questions about its taste. After clearing their palates, each received a glass of either cabernet sauvignon or chardonnay and was taken to one of five rooms: four that each featured a different type of music playing in a continuous loop, and a silent one serving as a control. Participants were asked to spend about five minutes sipping the wine, and were told not to converse.

A smaller pilot study had determined the four types of music:

  • “powerful and heavy” (“O Fortuna” from Orff’s Carmina burana)
  • “subtle and refined” (“Вальс цветов” [Val’s cvetov/Waltz of the flowers] from Cajkovskij’s Щелкунчик [Ŝelkunčik/Nutcracker])

After drinking the wine and listening to the music, participants were asked to rate the wine’s taste on a scale from zero to ten in the categories represented by the music types. In each case, participants perceived the wine in a manner consistent with the music they had listened to while drinking it.

This according to “Wine & song: The effect of background music on the taste of wine” by Adrian C. North (Wineanorak, 2008). In an earlier experiment, documented in “The influence of in-store music on wine selections” (Journal of applied psychology LXXXIV/2 [April 1999] pp. 271–276), North and two colleagues demonstrated that playing music identified with a particular country in a wine shop had a positive influence on sales of wine from that country.

Below, Mario del Monaco shares observations on wine and synesthesia from Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana.

More posts about synesthesia are here.

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Filed under Food, Science

Trade cards

Trade cards, which disseminate advertising by fostering cartophilia, have been issued since the early nineteenth century. Some are sources for music iconography, depicting musicians, composers, or dramatic works; those issued by instrument makers often depict their wares in attractive settings.

The card shown above (recto and verso) is an example of the latter, printed for the Estey Organ Company. Behind the group of music lovers, two children gaze at the Estey factory, which is now a museum. The company revolutionized musical life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by using marketing techniques like this card to place Estey organs in homes and institutions throughout the world.

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Filed under Iconography, Instruments