How effective is Asda FM at appealing to it's varied target audience through it's music schedule?
Asda FM is the radio station that plays in every Asda store and is run by their managing company Wal-Mart Stores, Inc themselves. They target their music towards all their customers but host specific genre radio shows at different times in the day and night to correctly target the music at those walking into the supermarket. For example in their 24 hour stores they play upbeat clubbing/party music to suit the party goers returning from a night of clubbing. In any store from in the mid afternoon to early evening they play Disney music so as to appeal to the children coming in to the store after school, accompanied by their parents. At any other time they are likely to play charting songs because pop music is the most generalizable genre to all kinds of people.
Asda FM is useful to the stores because it can increase morale within the shop. Putting people in a good mood has the potential to increase sales because everyone is feeling more optimistic. Also without music in the store, customers would become more aware of the time they are spending. The longer people stay in store, the more money they spend.
The station can play their own adverts over the tannoy without people noticing too much. Alot of customers, as soon as they recognized it was an advertisement, would zone out and not listen any more. Interspersing messages with music keeps the audience's attention.
The music also advertises the stores music section with all the songs played being available on CD within the shop.
To conclude, I think Asda FM effectively appeal to their audiences. They change their music genres according to who is likely to be in store at that time and they play appropriate adverts between the songs to drum up business and increase sales. Overall the whole concept is purely to increase profits and most of their audience would never realize that.
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