Ask someone to describe their favorite café and they will probably start with the coffee, the seating, maybe the lighting. They will rarely mention the music. But push a little further and you will often find that the sound is woven into the whole feeling they are describing — the low hum of something jazzy in the background, the fact that it was never too loud to have a conversation, the way the playlist always felt like it was curated by someone with actual taste. They cannot always name it, but it is there. Sound is one of the most emotionally loaded sensory inputs we have, and research consistently shows that music played during an experience directly influences how that experience gets stored as a memory.
This is not a small thing for a business to understand. UCLA neuroscientists found that fluctuating emotions triggered by music help form separate and more durable memories — essentially, music acts as an organizational tool for the brain, creating emotional boundaries that make experiences easier to recall. What this means in a retail or hospitality context is that the music playing in your space is not just filling silence. It is actively shaping what customers take home with them after they leave. A playlist that feels consistent, intentional, and aligned with the mood of the space gives customers something to anchor their memory to. A generic shuffle or an ill fitted soundtrack does the opposite — it creates sensory noise that leaves no impression at all.
This is where sonic branding enters the picture, and it is a conversation that is still almost entirely absent in the Indonesian business context. Globally, brands that invest in consistent audio identity — the right genre, tempo, energy level, and curation style applied consistently across locations and touchpoints — see measurable lifts in brand recall. Research shows that sonic branding can increase brand recall by up to 96% compared to visual branding alone, and that strategic use of music accounts for around 15% of a brand's overall business performance. These numbers reflect something intuitive once you think about it: people forget what they saw far faster than they forget how something made them feel. And music is one of the most direct routes to feeling.
The practical implication for any consumer facing business is that BGM is not a background decision — it is a brand decision. Choosing the right music is not about personal taste or whatever is trending on a streaming platform. It is about what emotional impression you want customers to carry with them after they walk out the door, and whether they will think of your space positively when deciding where to go next time. A restaurant that consistently sounds warm, unhurried, and considered is communicating something about itself with every visit. A boutique that always feels like it has a distinct sonic personality is building familiarity without saying a word. That familiarity, compounded over time, is what turns a one time visit into a habit.
Sources : University of California. (2023). Why emotions stirred by music create such powerful memories. https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/why-emotions-stirred-music-create-such-powerful-memories | MusicGrid. (2025). The science of sonic branding: Memory and business success. https://www.musicgrid.com/blog/science-of-sonic-branding | Spence, C. (2024). Sonic branding: A narrative review at the intersection of art and science. Psychology & Marketing. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/mar.21995