[wideminded]

Has there really ever been a study done that shows whether assaulting the ears with Christmas Musak repeated ad infinitum gets people to buy more? And how to explain the time I was trapped in an airport terminal waiting for a delayed flight while Christmas jingles played over the intercom for hours? (This was long ago enough that there were no stores in the terminal.) Perhaps the strategy is to increase the stress of the month before Christmas even more. But it seems more likely that the people who order the music to be played and those that put it together simply have no creativity.

[weegee]

"Muzak" is sometimes used as a generic term but there is a real company. I've even seen the van driving around in traffic from time to time.

I've got a book on the history of the company (that I got from a library book sale) but I haven't read it.

I don't think that they use subliminal messages in the recordings to get people to buy but there is psychological theory behind the recordings just as there is psychological theory behind painting a dining room's wall's green or the color selected for a waiting room.

Some "anxiety" in the music may be good for keeping shoppers moving (but that can become irritating when a shopper is stuck in a checkout line for over an hour).

Other recordings may be used to make the shoppers sentimental (open the wallet). Then again if one is sentimental for how things were (nostalgia) they may walk away empty handed/with regret seeing nothing but newfangled crap and at today's prices.

I'm listening to Christmas music when I can find one of my tapes or CDs because it just seems so inappropriate to listen to these recordings out of season.