Music & Taste

Many of us would agree that music influences our lives in a number of profound ways. But have you ever considered food, eating and taste to be among them?

When we stop to think about it, there is hardly ever a time when we dine in silence. Instead, eating is often accompanied by the chatter of friends or family members, a restaurant’s trendy playlist, your favorite Pandora cooking station, or even the audio of a primetime TV show playing in the background.

No matter what (or where!) you’re eating, odds are you’re also listening to something. Now, what if food and beverage brands could tap into this entangled connection between food and music to make their message more memorable and desirable? That would surely be pure gold for any marketer.

To discover how brands can best use a music strategy to drive sales and engagement, we turned to four forward-thinking experts in the areas of crossmodal research (the study of how our senses work together), culinary arts and branding to examine this topic from multiple angles. In Episode 5 of our Power of Audio podcast, we talk with:

Steve Keller

CEO/Strategist of iV Group

About his research into how music influences flavor.

Jozef Youssef

Founder and Chef Patron of Kitchen Theory

On how he uses crossmodal science to create memorable, multisensory experiential events for brands.

Benjamin Osher

Former Executive Chef at NOBU Moscow

About how music is a part of the culinary experience from start to finish.

Jennifer Arnoldt

Director of Retail Engagement + Experience at Taco Bell

On how major food brands are incorporated music into their marketing strategy.

If you like to eat food and love to listen to music (BTW, we hope that describes every single one of you!), then this is one episode you don’t want to miss. It’ll not only broaden your awareness of how different senses work together to create an experience, and for marketers, it just might spark some fresh, new ideas for how to connect and engage an audience.

Take a listen above…or add Pandora’s Power of Audio station to your Pandora to listen to all episodes.

Also, be sure to keep an eye out for more new episodes discussing the many ways audio plays a powerful role in our lives! But if you just can’t wait, try downloading a copy of Pandora’s Definitive Guide to Audio for even more audio-talk. It provides a complete lay-of-the-land for every advertiser currently using or thinking about using audio as part of their media mix.