Service and Experience with J. N. Halm: Background music and its effects on customer experience

When was the last time you spent time with friends at a bar, restaurant, hotel lobby or any such place? Do you recall the music that was playing in the background? Can you mention the specific song? It would not be too surprising if you do not recall the background music. However, the truth is that those sounds might have had more of an effect on you than you might realise.

As it turns out, the music playing in the background might have had far more to do with how much you and your friends might have spent that evening.

Researchers publishing in the November 2025 edition of the Marketing Letters have now provided some of the clearest evidence yet that the style of background music—specifically, whether it is classical or pop—has a measurable and meaningful influence on how much consumers are willing to pay for food and beverage products.

And the findings are not just interesting. They are, for any business in the hospitality or retail space, enormously instructive. The title of that study is “The impact of background music style on price thresholds for food and beverage products.”

We have long known, in a general sense, that music affects us. Anyone who has ever felt their mood shift when a particular song comes on the radio understands this instinctively. But the relationship between music and money—between what is playing and what we are willing to spend—is a more precise and nuanced territory.

It had already been established that classical music tends to lead consumers to spend more on food and beverages than pop music does. What was not yet clear was why. What are the exact mechanisms? What conditions make the effect stronger or weaker? It is these questions that the aforementioned research set out to answer.

Right. Wrong. Or rather—partly wrong, and fascinatingly so.

The first thing the research clarifies is what the music style does not affect. Interestingly, background music—whether classical or pop—has no significant influence on the lower acceptable price limit of a product. In other words, how little a consumer is willing to pay for something is not really moved by what is playing in the background. The floor of acceptability, it seems, is set by other factors entirely. But the ceiling? That is a very different story.

The research reveals that the upper acceptable price limit—the maximum a consumer is willing to pay—is very much influenced by music style, but only under certain conditions. And this is where it gets truly interesting. The effect of music on maximum willingness to pay depends on two moderating factors: the level of pleasure the consumer is experiencing and the type of product on offer.

As a matter of fact, the findings draw a sharp and important line between two categories of products: utilitarian and hedonic. Utilitarian products are those we buy for practical, functional reasons—think a bottle of water, a basic meal, something that meets a need.

Hedonic products, on the other hand, are those associated with pleasure, indulgence, and sensory enjoyment—a fine wine, a decadent dessert, a premium cocktail. For utilitarian products, the research found that background music style makes no significant difference to how much consumers are willing to pay. Practical need is, it would appear, relatively immune to the charms of a string quartet.

But for hedonic products, classical music works what can only be described as quiet magic. When classical music is playing, consumers are willing to pay significantly more for a pleasure product than when pop music fills the room—and this effect is amplified when the consumer is already in a state of high pleasure. Happy customers in a classical music environment are, in essence, the most financially generous version of themselves.

The mechanism behind this lies in what researchers call the reference price—that internal benchmark each of us carries around, against which we measure whether a price is reasonable or outrageous. Think of it as the invisible price tag you have in your head before you even look at the menu.

The research demonstrates that exposure to classical music, as opposed to pop music, actually raises this internal reference price. When classical music is playing, consumers recalibrate their sense of what things ought to cost—upwards. And when their reference price rises, so does their entire acceptable price range.

This finding is consistent with what researchers call the musical congruity hypothesis—the idea that there is a perceived fit between certain types of music and certain consumption contexts. Classical music carries with it associations of sophistication, elegance, and refinement.

When those associations are activated in the mind of a consumer who is already in a pleasurable mood and already engaged with a hedonic product, the result is a kind of upward recalibration of perceived value. The wine seems worth more. The dessert seems worth the indulgence. The entire experience feels elevated.

One can only imagine how many business owners in the food and beverage industry have never once considered the pricing implications of their playlist. Many have chosen their background music on the basis of personal preference, or to set a general atmosphere, or simply because they liked it. Very few, I would wager, have thought of music as a pricing instrument—which is precisely what this research suggests it can be.

Now, before the more sceptical reader dismisses this as merely a matter of common sense—of course, a fine dining restaurant plays classical music—it is worth noting what the research specifically refutes. The researchers tested several alternative explanations for their findings, and one by one, ruled them out.

Arousal level, perception of product quality, level of knowledge, degree of involvement, sense of task ease, and even the consumer’s general interest in music—none of these accounted for the results. The effect of classical music on upper price thresholds for hedonic products, moderated by pleasure level, stood on its own. That is a finding with considerable intellectual integrity.

I have realised that the most powerful influences on consumer behaviour are often the ones operating just beneath the threshold of conscious awareness. The customer who sits in a well-curated musical environment does not think to themselves, “Ah, this Bach concerto is making me reconsider my maximum willingness to pay for this crème brûlée.” They simply find themselves nodding more readily when the bill arrives. The influence is real. The mechanism is well-documented. But it is invisible to its subject.

For businesses in the food and beverage space, the practical implications are clear enough. If your product range leans heavily on the hedonic—if your core offering is pleasure, indulgence, and experience—then the music you choose to fill your space with is not a trivial decision.

It is, in a very real sense, a pricing decision. Classical music, played to customers who are already in a positive emotional state, creates the conditions under which they are most likely to accept and embrace a premium price point.

But there is a word of caution worth adding here. The research also makes it plain that the effect is tied to genuine pleasure—the consumer must actually be in a state of positive emotional experience for the classical music effect to reach its full potential.

This means that music cannot do the work alone. The food must be good. The service must be warm. The environment must be genuinely inviting. Classical music playing in a cold, poorly-lit, indifferently-staffed restaurant will not perform miracles. The music amplifies a good experience. It cannot manufacture one.

American poet Maya Angelou once observed that people will forget what you said, forget what you did, but will never forget how you made them feel. In the world of food and beverage service, that feeling—that carefully cultivated emotional state of pleasure and ease—is the very foundation upon which premium pricing must rest. Music, it now turns out, is one of the more powerful tools available to build that foundation.

So the next time you find yourself in a pleasant restaurant, glass of wine in hand, feeling unusually generous towards the menu, do listen carefully to what is playing in the background. It might just be earning its keep.

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