Raffles Dubai
is the latest five star luxury hotel brand to enhance and extend their unique
brand experience through the use of “music styling”, thanks to sensory brand
consultant Equal Strategy.
Occupying a
pre-eminent position in Wafi City, Dubai’s ultra exclusive lifestyle complex,
the 248-room Raffles Dubai is part of the Raffles International group which is
present in 19 locations worldwide including Paris, Macau and Beverly Hills. The
property epitomises the Raffles brand, recognised worldwide as “a promise to
provide the very best”.
Raffles Dubai’s
design and décor pays homage to its middle eastern location and heritage and
offers guests an oasis of Arabian service and hospitality in the midst of a
bustling desert metropolis.
Raffles Dubai
sought a comprehensive music styling solution from Singapore-based sensory brand
consultant Equal Strategy, one which would project their brand through music
which reflected the qualities and values of the hotel chain.
Simon A.
Faure-Field, CEO of Equal Strategy, has devised a music programming, management
and updating plan which draws upon the company’s extensive repertoire of over 5
million musical works. Four key guest environments were analysed and consulted
on: the hotel lobby, Fire and Ice American Grill, Azur All Day Dining Café and
Aseana.
Using
techniques of behavioural science as applied to music and auditory input,
Faure-Field devised a series of musical programs for each of these environments
based on the anticipated activities within each area combined with the likely
state of guest “arousal” (for instance relaxed or vigorous activity). A music
environment was then devised, varying in style and genre at different times of
the day, with unique playlists compiled for each outlet. These playlists drew
heavily upon the theme of each area and overall served to reflect the hotel’s
flagship presence in the middle east.
Equal Strategy
has consulted other hotel chains, as well as boutique properties, on similar
sensory branding solutions including Westin, Starwood, Pan Pacific, Naumi and M
Hotel to name a few. The trend in the hotel industry for environmental branding
is seen to be very much in the ascendant.
Faure-Field
cites the sounds that we hear in public spaces to be powerful influencers on
mood, behaviour and guest loyalty patterns. “The music that fills the ears of a
hotel property guest puts that guest into a certain state of mind therefore it’s
critical for this to gel with other aspects of the hotel experience such as
design, décor, service and even the scent that you smell in the air. The brand
hangs together as a result of all these cues and stimuli, not just any single
one, like design and décor for instance.”
According to
Faure-Field, a pleasant experience of a harmoniously presented brand induces
positive reinforcement amongst guests and leads to customer loyalty and repeat
business. “There is no mystery about it: disharmonious brands generate customer
aversion whilst consistently and reliably harmonious brands lead to loyalty. But
the brand is communicate through the totality of the guest experience and that
means paying close attention to something as seemingly innocuous as the
background music or the fragrance in the air”.
Faure-Field
started his business in 1998 providing companies with telephone recorded
answering services designed to help them project a consistent brand image when
interacting with customers. His company’s services currently cover the
creation of music play lists and fragrance deployment which is the most
sophisticated system available in Asia,
telephone on hold messaging, messages broadcast within retail businesses and
hotels.
Mr Faure-Field
is the only consultant in Asia Pacific specializing in combining music with
fragrance to synergise a consistent brand experience for customers. His work is
solidly grounded in behavioural science research and draws extensively upon the
finds of researchers in the field of effects of background music and atmosphere
on retail environments. In the retail arena, studies by Areni and Kim, for
example, noted that music can be a critical component of store atmosphere,
playing a role in the decision-making processes.
Their studies, and others, show that
if shoppers stay longer and travel slowly through a store, they are likely to
purchase more. Another study by Milliman¹ found that the tempo of music can
affect a shopper’s pace of movement around the store. For this reason the music
tempo at Borders is slow and relaxed. Creating the right ambience in a store
through music can have other benefits too, such as facilitating discussion
between customers and sales staff, something that can be carried over into the
hospitality field.
Faure-Field also collaborates with
world renowned fragrance house Belmay and Australian company Brandaroma to
design fragrances also positively reinforce brands. The system, which creates an
aerosolised fragrance deliverable through the property’s air conditioning
system, also has the ability to cancel out malodorous smells like body odour and
residual cooking smells emanating from kitchens and food preparation areas.
Odourfoyl has the ability to actually change the genetic structure of bad
smells so that the brain can no longer recognise them.
Faure-Field’s consulting company,
Equal Strategy (Singapore) Pte Ltd has also worked extensively with major hotel
chains like Westin, Starwood and Pan Pacific on similar spatial branding
solutions. The company is the only one of its kind in the Asia region advising
forward-thinking hoteliers on the deployment of these sensory brand techniques.
Footnotes
¹ Ronald E.
Milliman, Using Background Music to Affect the Behaviour of Supermarket
Shoppers, Journal of Marketing, Summer 1982.
