Understanding Jingles and Needledrop: A Rhetorical Approach to Music in Advertising

LINDA M. SCOTT*
studies of music in advertising have tended to characterize music as a nonsemantic, affective stimulus v*(orking independently of meaning or context. This implicit theory is reflected in methodology and procedures that separate music from its syntax of verbal and visual elements. Consequently, the consumer's ability to judge and interpret music as part of an overall rtietorical intention is overlooked. This article proposes an aitemative theorythat music is meaningful, language-like and calls for both interpretive and empincal research as vi^ays of exploring a richer, potentially more explanatory concept.

O the average American, music in advertising is a commonplace. Jingles, rock-star endorsements, and "needledrop" music are a trivial, easily understood part of the daily cultural discourse.' Children sing "Keep on, keep on, keep on moving with Twix" in the school yard. Parents smile, shaking their heads. A moon-headed piano player flies across television skies crooning "Mack the Knife," and the audience laughs, recognizing Ray Charles. Pepsi yanks Madonna's commercial to avoid offending the Catholic ehureh. The next morning, columnists raise their eyebrows knowingly. Advertising music is a shared experience we can parrot and parody together. In spite ofthe ease with which consumers interpret, remember, and play with advertising musie, scholars who study advertising seem confounded by it. Few studies of the role of musie in advertising exist, despite agreement that more work is needed. Those studies that have been done are riddled with ineonelusive findings. In most cases, this research incorporates little work from other fields toward understanding the eomplexity of musie as a cultural form. Consequently, the research is plagued by simplistic presuppositions about "how music works." These assumptions, which tend to characterize musie as a nonsemantie affective stimulus, form the basis of an implicit theory of musie that is carried through methodology to procedure.

The purpose of this article is to advance a new theoretical framework for the study of musie in advertising. An approach to musical meaning will be proposed that draws on notions of culture, rhetoric, and symbolic action, such as those espoused by Kenneth Burke and Clifford Geertz. In this view, ads use a variety of symbolic forms to effect persuasion among culturally constructed beings, exploiting every available means, including musie. Music becomes a functional component that contributes to the rhetorical task in ways as various as language. Eight illustrations ofthe complexity of music's role in advertising will be offered as evidence. Brought to the argument throughout will be the work of musie theorists such as Leonard Meyer, Vietor Zuckerkandl, Susanne Langer, and Alan Merriam. A broad range of musieal disciplines will be representedfrom psychology and social psychology, as represented by Jay Dowling, Dane Harwood, and Paul Farnsworth, to ethnomusicology, particularly as represented by Steven Feld, John Blaeking, John Shepherd, and Charles Keil. The approach proposed here also builds on recent works in consumer behavior that argue for a culturebased, or interpretive, approach to consumption (e.g., Hirsehman 1989; McCracken 1988). In partieuiar, this article is intended in the spirit of Grant MeCraeken's (1987) suggestion that ads be studied not as transparent envelopes of product information, but
'"Needledrop" is an occupational term common to advertising agencies and the music industry. It refers to music that is prefabricated, multipurpose, and highly conventional. It is, in that sense, the musical equivalent of stock photos, clip art, or canned copy. Needledrop is an inexpensive substitute for original music; paid for on a one-time basis, it is dropped into a commercial orfilmwhen a particular normative effect is desired.
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1990 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc.VoI. 17September 1990 All rights reserved. 0093-5301/91/1702^0011 $02.00

* Linda M. Scott is a doctoral candidate. Department of Advertising, College ofCommunications, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712. The author wishes to thank Steven Feld, David Mick, and three anonymous reviewers for their comments on previous drafts of this article.

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as meaningful artifacts that require the invocation of cultural frameworks to be understood. The techniques used here are adapted from literary theory, specifically rhetorical theory and its contemporary cousin, reader-response theory. Although the framework proposed is more purely rhetorical than semiotic (Davis and Schliefer 1989), there is an underlying philosophical premise that ads are conventional constructions of different kinds of symbols that require a unifying syntax to have meaning. In this sense, the proposed approach is continuous with structuralist work done by Mick (1986) and others (e.g., Umiker-Sebeok 1987). However, because rhetorical theory is historically grounded, this approach differs from a purely structuralist approach and shares philosophical overlap with historical approaches proposed or practiced by Pollay and others (Belk and Pollay 1985; Pollay 1979, 1987b). In an ad, as in any other speech act, syntax is important. The intersymbolic grammar of musical, visual, and verbal elements is basic to its work. Thus, those consumer behavior studies on music in or as a consumption experience, but not concerned with ads (Holbrook 1986, 1988; Holbrook and Schindler 1989; Milliman 1986; Yalch 1988), are dealing with an essentially different kind of musical communication. The discourse here is concerned with the research conducted on music in ads. Consumer behavior research on music and consumption will be used, with work from other disciplines, to help illuminate the discussion ofthe reception of advertising music by consumers. The following review, however, is confined to studies ofmusic in advertising and seeks primarily to illuminate the theoretical similarities that have driven this work.

THE LITERATURE Theory

Studies of advertising music share an underlying theory in which music is an affective background component that causes attachment to the product without the cognitive involvement ofthe viewer. Two explicit processing models are represented: classical conditioning (Gorn 1982; Kellaris and Cox 1989; Pitt and Abratt 1988) and affective attachment or low involvement (Alpert and Alpert 1986; Haley, Richardson, and Baldwin 1984; Mitchell 1988; Park and Young 1986; Stout and Rust 1986). Descriptive studies also assume a simple cause-and-effect model (Sewall and Sarel 1986; Stewart and Furse 1986). Others not offering explicit processing theories express the belief that musical response is attributable to affect (Simpkins and Smith 1974; Stout and Leckenby 1988). In its simplest terms, the effect of musical tones in advertising is conceptualized as classical condition-

ing. For example, Gorn's (1982) experiment exposed two groups of students, pretested for musical preferences, to simple pictures of pens accompanied by country or popular music and then presented a "purchase opportunity." Results showed a relationship between music that was liked and purchase behavior. Gorn concluded that his students were conditioned to purchase the pen by the pairing with music. Kellaris and Cox (1989) and Pitt and Abratt (1988) attempted to replicate this experiment without success. Gorn hypothesized that a positive affect mediated between music and response. Other researchers also argue for an affect-mediated stimulus-response model, although terminology may differ. For example, Mitchell (1988, p. 31) sought to show that the induction of "subjective feeling states" by ads affected attitude toward the ad and the brand and, thus, their evaluation. His research design conceived ofmusic as a tool that directly manipulated mood without cognitive involvement. Mitchell's model carries a different name and is explained in more complex terms than Gorn's, but it is substantially the same. Haley et al. (1984, p. 12) drew a similar model of nonverbal elements, including music: "In this model, the effects ofthe advertising are immediately incorporated into overall affective attitudes toward the advertised product and leave little if any traces elsewhere." In short, theoretical grounding for research in this area varies within a narrow range from affect-mediated classical conditioning to automatic mood manipulationall postulate affect-oriented, nonsemantic, automatic responses to musical stimuli. Most researchers have substantiated their approaches with the work of Herbert Krugman and Robert Zajonc; thus, it may be helpful to review aspects of that research. In the mid-1970s, Krugman postulated that the right and left brain division aliowed the right brain to monitor nonverbal stimuli without cognitive engagement (1977, 1986). Thus, people could be persuaded by nonverbal elements in advertising without verbal traces to recall. Krugman's thesis was not that nonverbal elements were always processed by the right brain and, therefore, not remembered in verbal form. Rather, he argued that the right brain's longer attention span sometimes allowed it to monitor stimuli, calling in left-brain functions only as needed. The activities of the right and left brain are now thought to be substantially integrated, particularly in the processing of rich symbolic material such as found in ads. But research on nonverbal elements in advertising retains a trace of this thinking in a tendency to assume that nonverbal elements are processed in an affective, unconscious, right-brained manner. Of course, the notion that nonverbal elements never leave traces, verbal or otherwise, is falsifiable. The fact that I could cite three nonverbal commercials in the first paragraph of this articleand

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225 to be responding to background music (liked or not) rather than to any meaning the music might have. Leonard Meyer (1956, p. 5), who has contributed substantially to music research as both theorist and empiricist, calls this the error of hedonism, "the confusion of" aesthetic experience with the sensuously pleasing," an approach that overlooks the communicative meaning that a musical piece may have. According to Meyer, hedonistic conceptions of music are made manifest in the "testing of pleasure-displeasure reactions to simple sound or elementary sound complexes." Tests of bipolar musical coding based on a sensualistic theory of music abound in advertising research. Yet even a small sample of musical ads shows many ways in which music actually communicates, as we shall see.

that most readers will recognize them and recall their musical elementstends to disprove the notion that such stimuli are always processed unconsciously and, therefore, are not remembered. Zajonc's thesis that affect can occur independently of cognition (Zajonc 1980; Zajonc and Markus 1982) is used to support research designs that assume music is a stimulus that always works independently of"cognition (e.g.. Park and Young 1986, p. 14). Zajonc (1980, p. 154) has repeatedly stressed that the usual case is for thought and affect to occur together: "In nearly all cases, however, feeling is not free of thought, nor is thought free of feeling." The further equation of nonverbal elements with affective response is also counter to Zajonc's (1980, p. 165) arguments, which stress the emotional effects of "cognitive" stimuli and vice versa. As a theoretical basis, some experimental researchers have cited Cialdini (1984), whose theory of persuasion relies on highly structured social situations of liking, such as Tupperware parties and good cop/bad cop ploys. The interpretive jump from these interactive group situations to music as an automatic route to persuasion is a large one. Further, Cialdini's advice to resist certain advertising appeals would be meaningless if consumers were indeed powerless to resist or recognize emotional manipulation by musical tones. It is conventional in Western thought to believe that musical effects can be equated with emotional ones (Dowling and Harwood 1986, p. 202; Farnsworth 1958, p. 86; Merriam 1964, p. 266). However, past inquiry has revealed difficulties in this concept. First, even if musical effects were restricted to emotional appeals, we would soon find that music can both affect and represent the emotions, not necessarily simultaneously or in similar ways (Dowling and Harwood 1986, pp. 202-203; Farnsworth 1958, pp. 86-95). This results in interpretive listening, which intrinsically distances the hearer and lessens the plausibility of automatic attachments caused by tone as such (Meyer 1956, p. 11). Second, the assumption that tonal forms automatically arouse moods and emotions is counter to experience and practice. As Farnsworth (1958, p. 94) notes, "Psychiatrists and clinical psychologists would no doubt rejoice if all they needed to cure the depressed or maniacal were access to a variety of compositions whose 'moods' had previously been carefully catalogued. Therapy under such circumstances could be administered in truly engineering fashioncomposition X for one disturbance and Y for another." Music's functional role in an ad, according to this positive affect theory, would be as pleasant background (Gorn 1982, p. 94; Park and Young 1986, pp. 11-12; Simpkins and Smith 1974, p. 362; Stout and Leckenby 1988, p. 207). Thus, the affective construct is essentially sensualistic: respondents are presumed

Method and Methodology

Studies of music iri advertising have been constructed by a theory of music as an emotionally manipulative stimulus that appears as a sensual backdrop and operates without cognitive intervention to achieve affective attachment. The tones themselves are thought to work independently and affectively, without semantic content, almost like a mood-altering drug. Methodologically then, isolating the music from the message is unproblematic, since the effect ofthe music is presumed to occur independently of meaning or context. This in turn leads to research procedures such as absence/presence coding, separation of musical modes or keys, and tests that present an austere visual with semantically unrelated music. These procedures exemplify what Meyer (1956, p. 5) has called the error of atomism, "the attempt to explain and understand music as a succession of separable, discrete sounds and sound complexes." The theoretical assumptions about the nature of music that underpin the methodology of separating it syntactically lead to procedures that negate the complex functionality of the music. Procedurally, the studies can be grouped into two eategories. In the first type, a laboratory setting was used to test responses to simulated ads with music (e.g., Gorn 1982; Kellaris and Cox 1989; Mitchell 1988; Park and Young 1986; Simpkins and Smith 1974). Responses usually involved an artificially constructed buying behavior or presumed antecedent, although one study used bipolar ratings of emotional effects (Stout and Rust 1986). Nearly all experiments used static visual stimuli (cards or slides) with musical accompaniment, and the visuals were denuded of significant verbal or visual appeal to isolate the effect of the musie. In no case using these artificial stimuli did the music have a semantic relationship to the visual stimulus. Respondents were generally pretested to determine musical preference (or "compatibility" or "pleasant-

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ness") on the hypothesis that more favorable buying behavior would be correlated with preferred music. In some instances, liking was mediated by some bipolar descriptor, such as happy/sad. Some significant results were found, but most showed no differences, correlated in unexpected ways, or conflicted internally (Mitchell 1988, pp. 140-141; Park and Young 1986, p. 21; Stout and Rust 1986). In contrast to the laboratory experiments, other studies tested large groups of real ads in an attempt to correlate the presence of music in the aggregate to a similarly aggregated effect (Burke Marketing Research 1978; Haley et al. 1984; McCollum/Spielman and Company 1976; McEwen and Leavitt 1976; Ogiivy and Raphaelson 1982; Radio Recall Research 1981; Sewall and Sarel 1986; Stewart and Furse 1986; Stout and Leckenby 1988). Spots were first coded for "executional elements"; coding for music was usually absence/presence, but sometimes additional bipolar codes (happy/sad, melody/no melody) were used. In each ofthese large-sample studies, the spots were tested for responses from groups of consumers; then the aggregate elements and responses were studied for correlations. The correlations were simple independent/dependent variable constructs: that is, the relationship of music to recall or to persuasion. None considered the interdependence ofthe executional elements themselvesthe interaction of visual, verbal, and musical elements.^ No significant correlation between music and response was found in any of this research. The situations and instruments used in these studiesbipolar coding, emotional descriptors, isolation from meaningful context, undiscriminating aggregationreflect the implicit theory. Further, the design of each study and the phrasing of conclusions were generally based on the convention that if correlations to response were found, they would suggest that the absence or presence ofmusic or a particular musical form might be generalized in its effects. This is the third error of music research identified by Meyer (1956, p. 5), the error of universalism, or "the belief that the responses obtained by experiment or otherwise are universal, natural, and necessary" and thus "good for all times and all places." In advertising research, universalism underpins conclusions that preferences for a given mode, tone, or style will hold across a variety of advertising exposures. Such an assumption precludes consumers' ability to judge and understand various styles and melodies as appropri^McEwen and Leavitt did study the interaction of "elemental factors." but these were groups of elements that cut across what we normally consider executional elements, such as music and visuals. For instance, music in this study was an absence/presence descriptor grouped under a larger elemental factor called "pleasant liveliness." which included the presence of visual dissolves and the inclusion of children or babies.

ate and communicative in particular message contexts, exclusive of personal taste. Again, the assumption reflects a theory ofmusic in which tones result in effects without interpretation, mediation, or judgment on the part ofthe listener. When correlations were not found or were contradictory in these studies, researchers sometimes concluded that the "compatible music" had no effect (Simpkins and Smith 1974) and sometimes sought to refine their theory of processing (but not their theory ofmusic; Park and Young [1986]). A few suggested that perhaps music required a more complex conceptualization (Haley et al. 1984; Stout and Leckenby 1988). It is to this last need that this article is addressed.

MUSIC, MEMORY, AND CULTURE

The recognition and comprehension of any form of musicvirtually the ability to perceive it as something other than noiseis now considered a learned skill acquired through years of enculturation and activated through memory (Dowling and Harwood 1986, p. 4; Merriam 1964, p. 297; Meyer 1967, p. 7; Zuckerkandl 1956, p. 64). Although invoked as intuitively and seemingly unconsciously as grammar, listening ability is no less the product of social training (Blacking 1973, 1981). Interpreting music, then, is a convention-based act, just like reading or looking at pictures. It is clear from the work of schema theorists in the arts (Gombrich 1960; Iser 1978; Meyer 1956, 1967) that understanding a complex message like an ad would involve evoking several symbolic schemata a huge regression of past exposures to pictures, words, sounds, and adsand the making and matching of" many hypotheses according to learned conventions. The simplest response to an ad thus requires the retrieval of"a storehouse of cultural information, as well as higher level manipulation ofthe present communication (Dowling and Harwood 1986, p. 4). The consumer's evaluation ofthe ad or the product necessarily follows a complex, highly symbolie enterprise required to find the ad intelligible at all. Further, each encounter with a given symbolic form results in its being recast by the present instance (Shepherd 1977, p. 19), because learning to interpret cultural material is not a skill that is learned once, like multiplication tables, but a continuing, lifelong experience (Dowling and Harwood 1986, p. 4; Merriam 1964, p. 146). Importantly, enculturation takes place in the larger context of styles and norms, whieh are "never static . . . on the contrary, dynamic and ever-changing" (Merriam 1964, p. 162). Finally, both the exhibition of response behavior and the verbal explanation of response are socially mediated (Meyer

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1956; Nisbett and Wilson 1977). Clearly, the cultura' implications in studying the role of music in advertis ing are enormous. Yet one ofthe most arresting weaknesses ofthe studies discussed here is their universal tendency to separate advertising from its social and cultural context.

FRAMING THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF ADVERTISING

Ifour concern is to understand music in communications, we must recognize the social character ofthe musical communication process. According to Feld (1984, p. 6), "The listener is implicated as a socially and historically situated being, not just as organs that receive and respond to stimuli. . . . For this reason, a description, and a theory ofthe musical encounter must be sensitive to the biographies of the object/ events and actors in question. . . .In short, the musical object is never isolated, any more than are its listeners or its producers." The first step in viewing music as a socially situated, communicative experience is to recognize that musical responses are not biologically imbedded but are thoroughly learned. There are two important consequences to this. First, it means that communication of meaning through music is based on systems of cultural conventions and, thus, interpretations are not idiosyncratic but largely shared. Second, it means that each musical communication is framed by the sum of the listener's past listening experience. The phrase "past experience" includes the immediate temporal experience of the particular stimulus (i.e., the message syntax) as well as the more remote, yet ever-present, past experience of similar musical stimuli and similar musical situations in other works, including other ads (Meyer 1956, p. 36). Thus, each advertising experience is framed by all those that preceded it. We approach an ad as we approach a novel, symphony, or sculptureby framing it with a set of expectations (Feld 1984; Gombrich 1960; Meyer 1956, p. 73; Iser 1978). Our expectations are based on the axioms of the culture, mediated by our own experiences, whether individual or sJiared. We learn through our enculturation to approach ads with prejudice, fascination, and skepticism. The lack of recognition of this framing step causes considerable bias in advertising research, which formulates an audience searching for product information, compliantly forming positive brand attitudes, and resolving intentions to purchase. A more accurate formulation might be television viewers who roll their eyes, sigh, and go for a snack when the commercials come on. Ads are inherently self-interested messages. Knowing that, a viewer comes to any commercial by fram-

ing it as a self-serving piece of rhetoric (Festinger and Maccoby 1968). The conventions of commercial placements prepare us to invoke that frame as a defensive move (Allyn and Festinger 1961). So the viewer, far from being driven to submission by affectproducing nonverbal elements, is often holding back from acceptance ofthe message, waiting for an excuse to dismiss the communication as "just more advertising hype." In this way, "knowledge and experience often color or modify our opinions about what is heard" (Meyer 1956, p. 78). This kind of wary stance is not the sort of behavior that leads to classical conditioning. Given the skepticism ofthe viewer, it is part ofthe work of the executional elements of advertising to help make the essential proposition more suasive. The music in an ad may perform any number of rhetorical tasks: supporting arguments, demonstrating claims, building a ground for mutual confidence, catching and holding attention, and providing a vehicle for repetition and remembrance. Music serves these functions only by virtue of shared cultural meaning. Important to the functioning ofmusic as rhetoric is the notion of style, the manner in which a message is communicated. Style in communications is no mere frill but a necessary and omnipresent attribute of any symbolic vehicle (Burke 1973, pp. 126-129). No message can be crafted without the appearance of style, regardless ofthe medium, and musical messages are no exception: "The meaning ofa tone, however, lies not in what itpointstobut/ ;/iepo/rt//^//.ye//! . . . The meaning is not the thing indicated but the manner of indicating" (Zuckerkandl 1956, p. 68). Musical styles are artificial constructs developed by musicians at specific times within specific cultures (Meyer 1956, p. 60). Their meaningand intended effectsmust therefore be understood historically. Responses to musical styles depend not on natural, universal responses or on learned denotative meanings but on habits of listening, acquired and adapted through ongoing enculturation (Meyer 1956, p. 61). Music is in no way a universal language but is shaped by the culture of whieh it is a part; in the texts it uses, it communicates direct information to those who understand the language and style in which it is couched (Merriam 1964, p. 223; Meyer 1967, p. 7). By using eertain visual, verbal, and musical styles, an advertiser makes a meaningful choice from among a variety of possibilities. The viewer interprets the stylistic choices as a sign indicative of the character or intent ofthe communicator (Aristotle 1954, pp. 164218; Burke 1969, pp. 49-64; Feld 1984, p. 2). Thus the style itself has meaning. Since the musical sign in an ad is understood by the hearer to be purposive, we must interpret it by addressing function. Because the same sign may serve very different functions or may

228 be replaced by a synonymous sign, meaning can be attributed only in the context of use (Hirsch 1976, pp. 23-26). Therefore, we must look for musical meaning in the historical and social context of performance, purpose, and functionit is from this vantage point that musie attains a rhetorical eloquence that can challenge language (Blacking 1981, p. 186).

JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

MUSIC AS A FUNCTIONAL ELEMENT IN ADVERTISING

Music in advertising is part of "an interdependence of elements which is complex, intermediate, and reciprocal, as against the simple, direct, and irreversible dependence implied in classical causality" (S. F. Nadel, quoted in Merriam 1964, p. 215). It is active, playing a part, and making a contribution to the total task. As such, music should not be isolated from the complex interrelationship of verbal and visual symbols that always accompany it in a specific message. Music never appears in an advertising context without at least one other executional element: the announcer voice-over, the words in a jingle, or the photography in a television commercial. These elements vary in their relationship to the music, depending on the function the music has in the particular commercial. The meaning ofthe music is determined by this relationship and does not inhere in the tones per se. Just as words in a language become meaningful by virtue of being joined in a system of relationships called a grammar, the elements in a commercial are made meaningful by their relationships to each other. According to Langer (1942, p. 67), "Grammatical structure, then, is a further source of significance. We cannot call it a symbol, since it is not even a term; but it has a symbolific mission. It ties together several symbols, each with at least a fragmentary connotation of its own, to make one complex term, whose meaning is a special constellation of all the connotations involved. What the special constellation is, depends on the syntactical relations within the complex symbol, or proposition." So the combination of nonverbal elements in an ad comes to have meaning via a peculiar sort of grammar that can employ all these symbols simultaneously: words, voice, music, color, shape, and motion. And it can do so in as many various ways as a grammar in language can construct sentences from individual words. Just as the representation and impaet of different parts of speech will vary from sentence to sentence, the salience and impact of music (or pictures) will vary from ad to ad. Thus, the expectation that the relationship between music and consumer response will be consistent is not realistic. In language, two sentences may be equally grammatical and comprehensible but not be equally interesting, pleasing, seductive, or persuasive. For example, "See John run" is just as grammatical, but not

nearly as intriguing, as, "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." Although equally grammatical, the sentences are likely to be evaluated differently. In examples of advertising, generalizations are often based on tests of static pictures systematically stripped of verbal or visual appeal and accompanied by unrelated music. Such generalizations are clearly founded on a "see John run" test. The leap from plain photographs accompanied by Benny Goodman to Robert Palmer and his postmodern Rockettes' message that Pepsi is "simply irresistible" is one that requires more than faith. It demands an absence of critical judgment. Ads, like sentences, symphonies, and sculptures, vary in quality and impact. Tests that do not recognize this overlook the consumer's ability to discriminate among commercials. Just as grammar allows us to generate and understand an infinite number of sentences and cultural conventions allow us to interpret poetry, newspaper reports, and VCR instructions, we interpret advertising in a given context, using shared cultural experience. Through convention and grammar, advertising music can function with at least as much variability as language: it can be informative or affective, it can denote or connote. Music can structure time, simulate motion, and support repetition. The demonstrations that follow are intended to illustrate, and thus act as evidence for, the proposition that music performs a variety of functions in its contribution to the overall rhetorical task of advertising. Several commercials will be described in sufficient detail for readers to either recall or imagine them. If a reader wishes to obtain video copies ofthe commercials, the names, dates, and agencies, as well as the Radio TV Reports identification numbers, have been provided in Table 1. In each commercial, music will be shown to be playing a different role, to contribute to persuasion, and to require interpretation. And we will see that the traditional research constructs would have obscured the rhetorical work ofthe music.

Dissonance/Consonance: Bayer Aspirin

A recent commercial for Bayer aspirin opens abruptly with a shot ofa man in pain and the sound of dissonant music. Within seconds, a billboard flashes a black-and-white message: "Pain." Then we see a series of flashes of various people rubbing their bodies in gestures of discomfort, accompanied by heightening aural dissonance. After a few ofthese pictures, we are shown a quiek image ofa Bayer aspirin bottle. Intermittently, with the continued images, the product pitch starts. As the announcer builds his case, the dissonant music almost imperceptibly becomes consonant. The people now are smiling, relieved. Bayer aspirin has done its work. This commercial is playing on the widely understood meaning for consonance and dissonance: "It is

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TABLE 1 MUSIC IN COMMERCIALS: EIGHT DEMONSTRATIONS

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Product Bayer aspirin

Honda LX Diet Coke Alleract Matchlight charcoal

Year 1989 1988 1982 1989 1988 1982 1984 1989

Commercial name Pain" 'Rough Idea" 'Premiere"

'Sneak Attack" 'The Moment of Truth 'Rondo" 'Bluesman" 'Robert Palmer"

Advertising agency
Lintas. New York

Identification number 89-05043 88-11365 82-15634 89-04832 88-05569 82-20260 84-16011 89-02229

California raisins Levi s 501 jeans Pepsi

Rubin Postaer. Los Angeles Lintas. New York McCaffery & McCall. New York DDB-Needham. Chicago Foote. Cone & Beiding. San Francisco Foote. Cone & Beiding. San Francisco BBDO, New York

NOTE.The identification number is from Radio TV Reports.

evident, no matter what theory we adopt, that consonance represents the element of normalcy and repose, [dissonance] the no less important element of irregularity and disturbance" (Meyer 1956, p. 231). It would be natural to assume that our response to this grating sound is instinctive, working on pain-avoidance principle. What is actually happening here is not instinctive, however, but a learned response to a culturally construed notion of noise. Although all cultures have some concept of dissonance (Meyer 1956, p. 229), the particular notion of what sounds actually are dissonant varies from culture to culture, indicating that recognition of dissonance is culturally determined, socially mediated, and learned (Dowling and Harwood 1986). "For consonance and dissonance are not primarily acoustical phenomena, rather they are human mental phenomena and as such they depend for their definition upon the psychological laws governing human perception, upon the context in which the perception arises, and upon the learned response patterns which are part of this context" (Meyer 1956, p. 229). Thus, what we might interpret as a phenomenon occurring in nature is, in fact, a metaphor. Yet it is in this apparent naturalness that the artifice of metaphor finds its strongest power: the metaphorical is felt to be naturally real, obvious, and complete. Even the naturalness of this metaphor needs interpreting within the framework ofthe commercial. We do not merely cover our ears in reaction but understand quickly, on the basis of our past experiences with advertising, that this dissonance is part of an effort to tell us something. To understand what that something is, we must attend to other parts of the message: "No particular connotation is an inevitable product ofa given musical organization, since the association of a specific musical organization with a particular referential experience depends upon the beliefs and attitudes ofthe culture toward the experience" (Meyer 1956, p. 262). Dissonance is often used in music as a foil against which consonance can be "more gloriously" present (Zuckerkandl 1956, p.

106). A similar construct is used in the Bayer commercial; the resolution ofthe dissonance into consonance parallels the structure ofa problem and solution within the ad. So, by invoking both our past experiences with dissonance and consonance and our schema for problem/solution advertising, we are easily able to interpret the intended meaning: Bayer aspirin makes pain go away. The music in this spot has accomplished two tasks. It has reproduced the affect of discomfort and the peace of repose, while demonstrating product benefit with a higher-level cognitive operation of metaphor. Thus, it has functioned efficiently as a rhetorical device. Note that the kind of bipolar, "liked-disliked" music construct of many research strategies would have obscured this meaning. Certainly no one would report liking the music. Yet its use is persuasive.

Representing Motion: Honda LX

A Honda LX spot opens with a familiar situation: a driver wants to pass a slow "eighteen-wheeler" on a narrow country road. An opportunity opens up when a side road appears. The driver takes it, but must "floor it" to be sure she actually does pass the truck. As the race goes on, we hear sprightly music, clearly designating the movement of the little Honda as it presses to pass the truck. In this spot, the music is working to describe the speediness ofthe car while heightening the tension of the narrative, helping to hold our attention. Music's ability to represent motion is widely recognized and a time-honored use (Zuckerkandl 1956, pp. 79-95). However, it is important to note also the substitutability of this particular piece in representing the motion ofthe car. Any number of other sprightly representations of motion in musical form would have worked for this task. (From this phenomenon comes the whole industry of "needledrop" music.) Note also that this particular melody, in another context, could

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take on many other meanings: a hostess frantically making last-minute adjustments to the buffet table, children scrambling up a tree, a young man unloading groceries from a car, and so on. It is this principle of synonymity that is at the basis of cultural interpretation, as distinguished from lexically oriented systems of meaning (see Hirsch 1976, pp. 50-73). Since this piece is potentially synonymous with other musical notations, we interpret it with the aid ofthe related visual. The meaning ofthe music would be lost if separated grammatically from its visual term.

Rhythm and Repetition: Diet Coke

The Diet Coke jingle is well known. The introductory spot employed a staged Radio City premiere with a cast of hundreds of celebrities. The Rockettes dance around a gargantuan Diet Coke while waiters serve samples on silver trays. There is no auditory message except the jingle. The lyrics themselves are the kind of advertising message that has meaning only for a brand manager. Introducing Diet Coke! You're gonna love it just for the taste of it. Introducing Diet Coke! You're gonna love it just for the taste of it. You're gonna taste with just one calorie. Introducing Diet Coke! Introducing Diet Coke! This is the one that can carry the fame Ofthe number one soft drink, The number one name. The real cola taste that you wanted is here. Now and forever. We're going one better. Introducing Diet Coke! You're gonna drink it just for the taste of it. Just for the taste of it. Diet Coke! What is persuasive in this commercial is not the selfcongratulatory verbals. What is persuasive is the crowd of celebrities and the rhythmic movement of the repeated rising tones in the jingle. Rhythm, like consonance and dissonance, is culturally determined: "We must not forget that what we call rhythm in music is a comparatively new thing, unknown to antiquity and the Middle Ages" (Zuckerkandl 1956, pp. 76-77). But the definite intent in the wavelike pattern in a rhythmic motion like this is one of the most forceful in modern Western culture. Rhythmic motion and patterned tones are traditionally used in situations to elicit group solidarity in action (Zuckerkandl 1956, pp. 173-174). In this particular instance, the music is also helping to carry the ridiculous repetitiveness in the words an important task in advertising, where repetition is key. Music not only supports repetition but can make

it pleasurable when other forms would be grating and nonsensical (Zuckerkandl 1956, pp. 213-214). Further, rhythmic repetition in music creates a growing sense of accomplishment. In rhetoric, this sense of accomplishment is called "formal assent." Burke (1969, pp. 58-59) explains, "We know that many purely formal patterns can readily awaken an attitude of collaborative expectancy in us. For instance, imagine a passage built about a set of oppositions ('we do this, but they on the other hand do that; we stay here, but they go there: we look up, but they look down,'' etc.). Once you grasp the trend ofthe form, it invites participation... by the time you arrive at the second of its three stages, you feel how it is destined to developand on the level of purely formal assent you would collaborate to round out its symmetry by spontaneously willing its completion and perfection as an utterance." Thus, through its unrelentingly rhythmic, ascending, and repetitive pattern, particularly in a visual matrix of social approval, the music in the Diet Coke commercial is doing the lion's share ofthe rhetorical work through the mechanism of formal assent.

Music as Narrative: Alleract

A recent Alleract commercial operates on that wellknown cultural form, the narrative, using conventional denotations of musical instruments (see Merriam 1964, p. 237). An allergy sufferer sits on a park bench. Strings are plucked suspensefully as, behind him, animated trees and plantspresumably carrying allergenic pollenscreep up to the bench. He begins to sniffle and sneeze. A snare drum signals the climax. Then the sound of trumpets declares the rescue as the product is introduced as the hero. Finally, the narrative is briefly reprised both visually and musically. While the product pitch in this commercial is being given by the announcer voice-over, a simultaneous narrative is being carried by the musical accompaniment and visuals. Notice that relegating this music to mere "pleasant background music without a melody" would completely obscure its functionality in narrating the rescue ofthe hay-fever sufferer by the product. Childhood experiences with pieces such as "Peter and the Wolf are the basis for our ability to interpret music narratively. Holbrook (1986, 1988) has recounted personal experiences that demonstrate the cultural and individual forces that shape our concepts of artifactual meaning. In particular, he tells of his fear on first hearing "Peter and the Wolf." These singular fears, related to his own injuries and development, were embroidered on the cultural meaning of the piece as a fearsome narrative (1988). In this way, interpretations of cultural artifacts come to have individualized meanings while resting on a large base of

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231 passingly familiar with classical music to know that this is a soft send-up of so-called serious music. Its flouting of convention is both musical and culinary. Therefore, we can see that a coding system designed to correlate preferences for "classical" versus "popular" music would entirely miss the point.

shared significance. The challenge of musical communications research, then, would be to find that area in which interpretation converges and is no longer idiosyncratic but shared.

"Locating": Matchlight Charcoal

The current Matchlight charcoal campaign dramatizes ease of use via sports metaphors. In one ad, a man wearing jeans and a baseball cap emerges from his basement and walks toward the barbeque pit. We hear the familiar organ music ofthe ballpark, increasing the tension through dramatic chords. The man's family looks on with apprehension; his wife offers him lighter fluid. The man "pitches" a lighted match into the pit, and it lands on a bag of Matchlight charcoal. As the flames catch, the family looks happy and dinner begins; the organ music changes to that distinctive scramble of triumphant chords that one hears at the ballpark when a home run or other celebrative event occurs. The music here operates through the interpretive move that Feld (1984) describes as "locating." In this case, the location is a specific kind of experience, American baseball games, that the viewer must have to interpret the commercial. Thus, the message is intentionally audience-selective. The appeal, however, is not based on musical taste but on what the music signifies about a lived experience. Retrieval of that experience is necessary to understanding the meaning on all levels: visual, verbal, and musical. The music, then, is part ofa complex syntax that argues through sports metaphors, and it must be understood on a cognitive level. Although the intended viewer may haveand probably does havea positive association and affect toward the commercial, to say that this spot works through affective response and automatic attachment would be reductive in the extreme.

Forging Identifications: Levi's "Bluesman"

The Levi's 501 campaign that began in 1984 playfully centers around the color and word "blue." There are blue jeans, blue film, and the bluesin one ad, a young man even paints his sneakers blue. In an early spot, a Clio winner, the Hghthearted interludes of urban youth are paradoxically interspersed with the image of a black man sitting in a window and quietly playing the blues. He is clearly the singer of the music, but his image seems incongruous with the others. He is older, immobile, boxed in. He is recognizable as the archetypal rural bluesman (Keil 1966, pp. 34-36)hence, the title ofthe spot. We could interpret this as a casual use of popular music. This campaign capitalized on the crossover of black artists into the niainstream pop audience in the mid-1980s (Perry 1988, pp. 51 -54) and the rise ofthe blues in popularity among white audiences (Keil 1966, p. 79). But I suggest that this spot is a dialogic representation of the phenomenon of play and subcultural forms found between urban white youth (especially working class) and black culture. The conflict between urban youth's exclusion from mature roles and their exposure to an ethic of material success often results in a hedonistic approach to life and an adoption of other cultural forms that articulate alienation (Shepherd 1985). In particular, the adoption of blues and other black musical forms by white working-class youth has been observed. Thus, the playfulness and the bluesman represent a dialogic approach to identifying with alienation. Meaning is being played out through a multivoiced discoursethe voice of urban youth, the voice ofthe bluesmanrepresented within a fictive construct (Bakhtin 1981). This spot speaks through an identification between classes, as opposed to insinuating a direct identification between advertiser and consumer. The most clearly marked carrier ofthe identification is the music. As Burke (1969, pp. 19-27) explains, the need for communication exists only in our division from each other; we communicate through simple and sometimes small areas of consubstantiationa taste for the blues, for exampleand in so doing forge identifications. As Burke (1973), Bakhtin (1981), and Iser (1978) have made clear, even fictive constructs novels, poems, proverbsare interested communications, and rhetorical intent is active even in the fictive representation here. Thus, this interplay between urban youth and rural bluesman insinuates the interests

Structuring Time: California Raisins

In a 1983 Clio-winning commercial, Mozart's "Rondo alia Turca" provides a dizzying dive through 30 seconds of unconventional recipes using California raisins. A feminine voice sings about the recipes so quickly that the words are nearly unintelligible. A legion of dishes sails by. The raisins fall on them in slow motion, opposing the speed ofthe music. Once the spot begins, most viewers are held to the end and perceive the experience as shorter than 30 seconds. This spot demonstrates music's well-known ability to structure time, creating a time sequence that is different, bracketed from the normal, perceived flow ofevents (Dowling and Harwood 1986, pp. 182-184). In a rhetorical sense, the music in the raisins commercial interrupts the surrounding commercial flow by creating a virtual "time-space." And one need be only

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ofthe advertiser through the device of an identifying metonymyblues and blue jeans.^

Musical Ethos: Pepsi

In one ofthe Pepsi rock-star endorsements, a collage of product shots and fountains is interspersed with Robert Palmer and a fashionably dressed, pokerfaced contingent of young women, who are at once reminiscent of beauty-pageant contestants, the Rockettes, and Esther Williams movies. Palmer is singing a version of his hit song "Simply Irresistible"; the commercial visually mimics the video. Thus, the commercial refers to a product, a song, a videoas well as to Miss America, Radio City extravaganzas, and water ballet. By referring to so many cultural texts, this spot exemplifies what is called "intertextuality." As a typically postmodern artifact, the meaning of this ad is in the free play between all these textual references. Inferring the meaning is a complex, impressionistic, and highly creative enterprise for the viewer. The increasing economic interdependence among rock stars, record companies, music television, and advertising agencies draws the meanings of products, records, stars, and videos ever closer together (Frith 1988). It becomes difliicult to sort out a separate meaning from these interrelated texts. In this case, the lyrics ("anything but typical. . . simply irresistible") are fortuitous for the product. But, for the intended audience, the song is not necessarily referentialas a typical jingle would be. What the song, the star, and the women are doing is pointing to an ethos, which in rhetorical terminology means the fictively constructed implied speaker. It is neither the actual speaker (Pepsico) nor the visualized character (Robert Palmer) but an entity somewhere in between. An ethos is constituted through sketchy references called deictics. cues that must be assembled to see a clear personality (see Culler 1975, pp. 164-166). Here, the ethos is the Pepsi Generation, a 25-year-old fictive construct that has been carefully maintained by updating the deixisthe system of visual and musical cuesperiodically. This allows an appeal to a targeted audience familiar with both the music and the visual language. Other viewers may or may not be pleased by the presentation, but they will know to whom the message is directed. Here we address the fact that musical signs may have varied effects on viewers, even from the same culture. According to Merriam (1964, p. 271), "Connotations will vary even among those who do have the same cultural
' A metonymy is a rhetorical figure based on adjacency or contiguity. That is, the relationship is possible merely because the two objects happen to occur together. Thus, metonymy often draws associations in which the relationships are accidental or trivial.

background and who are acquainted with the modes of association established within the style. However, this variation, though significant, is often not as wide as it seems at first glance. . . . In other words, while it is true that on one level (that of specific meaning) the ideas entertained by various listeners are patently different, on another level (the level of symbolic and metaphorical meaning) the concepts entertained by the various listeners are very similar." Pepsi commercials continually update the signifiers and, thus, the appeal to a youthful audience. Older viewers may not interpret the music in exactly the same way as the intended audience or be affected by it in a similar way. But this does not mean they do not understand it. On the contrary, they understand that the intended purpose is to appeal to other groups. Notice that it is through the changes of style (not only ofmusic but of clothing and other signifiers) that the Pepsi Generation continues to be young in spite of its advancing years as an ethos. The adoption of a particular style of delivery as a means of building mutual confidence between speaker and listener is a device that rhetoricians have recognized since classical times (Corbett 1965, pp. 26-27). The rhetorical effectiveness of a given style, however, depends on how it is interpreted in a particular culture at a particular historical moment. Thus, any model ascribing a certain style of music as most effective with this age group would fail to be predictive because it lacks dynamics. Such a model would be potentially falsified with every new Top 40 list. This is but one example of the need to ground musical tests in a sense of cultural temporalitythat is, in history. A disco style that might have been appropriate to the Pepsi ethos in 1978 would have seemed hopelessly dated and unappealing to young audiences in 1988. The blues ofthe rural black man once had particular meaning for a specific subculture; this style has now, according to some critics, lost its subcultural edge and been coopted by the dominant culture in the form of the white record industryand the advertising industry (Perry 1988). Holbrook (1986) has chronicled his own travails in maintaining a taste for jazz against the vagaries of popular trends. The historicity of musical tastes in general has recently been demonstrated by Holbrook and Schindler (1989). Thus, studies that attempt to identify ideal relationships based on musical preferences suffer from the failure to recognize the dynamics of style.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

First and above all, an explanation must do justice to the thing that is to be explained, must not devaluate it,

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interpret it away, belittle it, or garble it, in order to make it easier to understand. The question is not "At what view ofthe phenomenon must we arrive in order to explain it in accordance with one or another philosophy?" but precisely the reverse: "What philosophy is requisite ifwe are to live up to the subject, be on a level with it?" The question is not how the phenomenon must be turned, twisted, narrowed, crippled so as to be explicable, at all costs, upon principles that we have once and for all resolved not to go beyond. The question is: "To what point must we enlarge our thought so that it shall be in proportion to the phenomenon." [Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, epigraph in Zuckerkandl (1956)] I have illustrated here the complexity ofmusic as a cultural form and the range of roles it can play as a rhetorical element in an ad. The foregoing arguments thus constitute an alternative theory ofmusic as a basis for advertising research, one in which music is meaningful and language-like rather than affective and nonsemantic. This theory ofmusic is greatly expanded in terms of complexity and in terms of potential explanatory power as well. It illustrates the promise ofthe interpretive, or humanistic, paradigm that has recently been under discussion in consumer research (Hirschman 1989; Lutz 1989). I do not, however, wish to suggest that the proposed theory should not bs subject to empirical investigation (see Calder and Tybout 1989); I am offering it as an alternative theory to be negotiated and investigated empirically (Deshpande 1983). A careful review ofthe sources used to construct the argument for this theory would show that it is already based on a combination of interpretive and empirical sources. However, adopting such a concept would necessarily lead to a different methodology and, therefore, alternative procedures for research. The most obvious difference is in the use of interpretive skills and language to develop a more sensitive grasp ofthe ways that consumers may interpret music in an ad. My hope is that this article might stimulate a discourse in which scholars share, negotiate, and refine knowledge about musical rhetoric in the way that scholars in the humanities do (Hirschman 1986). Since advertising borrows from the arts in both form and content, it seems worthwhile to look at those disciplines for a better understanding of how artifactual meaning is constituted by both makers and users. Some researchers have already begun to analyze language and visuals in ads through literary criticism or semiotics (Stern 1989); it seems reasonable to argue that doing the same with music would be fruitful. As Sherry (1990, p. 43) has argued in his analysis ofthe postmodern potential for consumer research, this would require honing interpretive skills in a way that has not been traditional in consumer research, yet it could reveal the "virtually unrecognized limits our

conventionally-framed construals of persuasive communication have placed upon our insight." To accommodate such notions as style and locating, we would need to formulate interpretive concepts with a historical base of advertising samples. This would require some things that are still in short supply in the disciplinearchives and histories (Pollay 1979). Although several institutions now have advertising archives, we are a long way from having a shared, easily accessible record of texts, such as those in literature or the other arts. This situation is exemplified by the need to describe and suggest avenues for procuring the commercials interpreted in this paper. Yet these difficulties should not override the development of a historical sense of advertising forms; neither marketing nor consumer culture are ahistorical constructs (Sherry 1990). Because rhetorical theory tends to ground analysis in history and culture, it would become more evident that advertising, as an institution, is a speaker in political as well as economic discourses. As Pollay (1986, 1987a) and Rogers (1987) have suggested, critical approaches to consumption and ads could be appropriately added to'the domain of consumer research. Rogers has suggested the broadening of method and scope, the triangulation of qualitative and quantitative, to achieve this end. The power implications of ads are significant. Developing ideologies of consumption, chemical use, race, class, gender relations, and even warfare are evident in ads across time. The Levi's 501 jeans commercial discussed here is just one that suggests even music can be adapted to ideology in advertising. Taking advantage ofthe richness and theory-generating ability of interpretive approaches does not preclude such things as quantification and does not relegate research to the idiosyncratic (Christians and Carey 1980). A major premise of this article is that musical meanings in ads are culturally based and, thus, socially defined and shared. So, although individual interpretation does occur, that understood area where the meaning can be seen as generally acceptable can serve as an anchor for research (Culler 1975; Hirsch 1976). Measurement of acceptable interpretations can then occur conceptually as the collective overlap of many individual interpretations rather than as a one-to-one matching with the interpretations of the researchers. For example, given the Alleract commercial described previously, how many allergy sufferers would describe it by telling a similar story? How similar would they be to each other? Hirsch (1976) and Culler (1975) have suggested that recognition of synonymity is a way of observing shared interpretations empirically. Substituting music of various tempos in the Honda ad and seeing how people recognize the semantic difference might be one way of doing this and would not require complex

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articulation on the part of respondents. Successful precedent exists for using synonymity recognition as a basis for measuring musical meaning (Dowling and Harwood 1986, pp. 210-211). Several interpretive writers mentioned here, including Geertz, Burke, and Blacking, have called for a statistical analysis of symbolic or musical meanings in other contexts, on the basis of confluence of meaning or function, not form. This would result in an ethnography of symbols (Geertz 1983) or a statistics of the symbolic (Burke 1973). This kind of study might ask questions about how often ads use music to designate motion or to locate the viewer in the past and about how people interpret these cues and with what degree of convergence. By designing studies and instruments that look for convergence, synonymity, and confluences of meaning, we might be able to quantify comprehension and response to music in ads with greater success than is now being achieved. In sum, we do not have to view the development of an interpretive theory and the empirical exploration of that theory as mutually exclusive enterprises. Instead, each can enlighten the other in the form ofa triangulation (Deshpande 1983; Sherry 1990). Several ofthe writers cited in this articleHirsch, Culler, Burke, and Iserare literary critics. In textual criticism, the infusion of empirical data into theory building has recently been a vibrant source of learning, particularly in the area of readerresponse theory and new historical criticism. What constitutes empirical research often differs from the experimental designs analyzed here, and the methods I have proposed differ too, but the effort should be made to ground theory in experience. One ofthe signal symptoms of weakness in the studies discussed here is that the theory ofmusic being used is not consistent with the way we experience the phenomenon in everyday life. The way out lies not in avoiding observation and quantification but in avoiding ahistoricism, reduction, and atomism. We must not let our methods drive our theories but must instead, in the spirit ofthe Schelling quotation, design our methods in a way that can encompass whatever theory seems articulate enough to fully describe the phenomenon. In this way, the full potential ofa pluralistic perspective can be achieved in the study of music, and in other areas of inquiry as well, as these approaches come across schisms to meet each other. [Received September 1989. Revised April 1990.]

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