Understanding Jingles and Needledrop:A Rhetorical Approach to Musicin Advertising

LINDA M. SCOTT*

studies of music in advertising have tended to characterize music as a nonseman-tic, affective stimulus v*(orking independently of meaning or context. This implicittheory is reflected in methodology and procedures that separate music from itssyntax of verbal and visual elements. Consequently, the consumer's ability to judgeand interpret music as part of an overall rtietorical intention is overlooked. Thisarticle proposes an aitemative theory—that music is meaningful, language-like—and calls for both interpretive and empincal research as vi ays of exploring a richer,potentially more explanatory concept.

T O the average American, music in advertising is acommonplace. Jingles, rock-star endorsements,

and "needledrop" music are a trivial, easily under-stood part of the daily cultural discourse.' Childrensing "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 televisionskies crooning "Mack the Knife," and the audiencelaughs, recognizing Ray Charles. Pepsi yanks Madon-na's commercial to avoid offending the Catholicehureh. The next morning, columnists raise their eye-brows knowingly. Advertising music is a shared expe-rience we can parrot and parody together.

In spite ofthe ease with which consumers interpret,remember, and play with advertising musie, scholarswho study advertising seem confounded by it. Fewstudies of the role of musie in advertising exist, de-spite agreement that more work is needed. Thosestudies that have been done are riddled with ineon-elusive findings. In most cases, this research incorpo-rates little work from other fields toward understand-ing the eomplexity of musie as a cultural form. Conse-quently, the research is plagued by simplisticpresuppositions about "how music works." These as-sumptions, which tend to characterize musie as anonsemantie affective stimulus, form the basis of animplicit theory of musie that is carried through meth-odology to procedure.

* Linda M. Scott is a doctoral candidate. Department of Adver-tising, College ofCommunications, University of Texas at Austin,Austin, TX 78712. The author wishes to thank Steven Feld, DavidMick, and three anonymous reviewers for their comments on previ-ous drafts of this article.

The purpose of this article is to advance a new theo-retical framework for the study of musie in advertis-ing. An approach to musical meaning will be pro-posed that draws on notions of culture, rhetoric, andsymbolic action, such as those espoused by KennethBurke and Clifford Geertz. In this view, ads use a vari-ety of symbolic forms to effect persuasion among cul-turally constructed beings, exploiting every availablemeans, including musie. Music becomes a functionalcomponent that contributes to the rhetorical task inways as various as language. Eight illustrations ofthecomplexity of music's role in advertising will beoffered as evidence. Brought to the argumentthroughout will be the work of musie theorists suchas Leonard Meyer, Vietor Zuckerkandl, SusanneLanger, and Alan Merriam. A broad range of musiealdisciplines will be represented—from psychology andsocial psychology, as represented by Jay Dowling,Dane Harwood, and Paul Farnsworth, to ethnomusi-cology, particularly as represented by Steven Feld,John Blaeking, John Shepherd, and Charles Keil.

The approach proposed here also builds on recentworks in consumer behavior that argue for a culture-based, or interpretive, approach to consumption(e.g., Hirsehman 1989; McCracken 1988). In partieu-iar, this article is intended in the spirit of Grant Me-Craeken's (1987) suggestion that ads be studied notas transparent envelopes of product information, but

'"Needledrop" is an occupational term common to advertisingagencies and the music industry. It refers to music that is prefabri-cated, 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 foron a one-time basis, it is dropped into a commercial or film when aparticular normative effect is desired.

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224 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

as meaningful artifacts that require the invocation ofcultural frameworks to be understood.

The techniques used here are adapted from literarytheory, specifically rhetorical theory and its contem-porary cousin, reader-response theory. Although theframework proposed is more purely rhetorical thansemiotic (Davis and Schliefer 1989), there is an un-derlying philosophical premise that ads are conven-tional constructions of different kinds of symbols thatrequire a unifying syntax to have meaning. In thissense, the proposed approach is continuous withstructuralist work done by Mick (1986) and others(e.g., Umiker-Sebeok 1987). However, because rhe-torical theory is historically grounded, this approachdiffers from a purely structuralist approach andshares philosophical overlap with historical ap-proaches 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 impor-tant. The intersymbolic grammar of musical, visual,and verbal elements is basic to its work. Thus, thoseconsumer behavior studies on music in or as a con-sumption experience, but not concerned with ads(Holbrook 1986, 1988; Holbrook and Schindler1989; Milliman 1986; Yalch 1988), are dealing withan essentially different kind of musical communica-tion. The discourse here is concerned with the re-search conducted on music in ads. Consumer behav-ior research on music and consumption will be used,with work from other disciplines, to help illuminatethe discussion ofthe reception of advertising musicby consumers. The following review, however, is con-fined to studies ofmusic in advertising and seeks pri-marily to illuminate the theoretical similarities thathave driven this work.

THE LITERATURETheory

Studies of advertising music share an underlyingtheory in which music is an affective backgroundcomponent that causes attachment to the productwithout the cognitive involvement ofthe viewer. Twoexplicit processing models are represented: classicalconditioning (Gorn 1982; Kellaris and Cox 1989; Pittand Abratt 1988) and affective attachment or low in-volvement (Alpert and Alpert 1986; Haley, Richard-son, and Baldwin 1984; Mitchell 1988; Park andYoung 1986; Stout and Rust 1986). Descriptive stud-ies also assume a simple cause-and-effect model (Sew-all and Sarel 1986; Stewart and Furse 1986). Othersnot offering explicit processing theories express thebelief that musical response is attributable to affect(Simpkins and Smith 1974; Stout and Leckenby1988).

In its simplest terms, the effect of musical tones inadvertising is conceptualized as classical condition-

ing. For example, Gorn's (1982) experiment exposedtwo groups of students, pretested for musical prefer-ences, to simple pictures of pens accompanied bycountry or popular music and then presented a "pur-chase opportunity." Results showed a relationshipbetween music that was liked and purchase behavior.Gorn concluded that his students were conditioned topurchase the pen by the pairing with music. Kellarisand Cox (1989) and Pitt and Abratt (1988) attemptedto replicate this experiment without success.

Gorn hypothesized that a positive affect mediatedbetween music and response. Other researchers alsoargue for an affect-mediated stimulus-responsemodel, although terminology may differ. For exam-ple, Mitchell (1988, p. 31) sought to show that the in-duction of "subjective feeling states" by ads affectedattitude toward the ad and the brand and, thus, theirevaluation. His research design conceived ofmusic asa tool that directly manipulated mood without cogni-tive involvement. Mitchell's model carries a differentname and is explained in more complex terms thanGorn's, but it is substantially the same.

Haley et al. (1984, p. 12) drew a similar model ofnonverbal elements, including music: "In this model,the effects ofthe advertising are immediately incorpo-rated into overall affective attitudes toward the adver-tised product and leave little if any traces elsewhere."In short, theoretical grounding for research in thisarea varies within a narrow range from affect-medi-ated classical conditioning to automatic mood ma-nipulation—all postulate affect-oriented, nonseman-tic, automatic responses to musical stimuli.

Most researchers have substantiated their ap-proaches with the work of Herbert Krugman andRobert Zajonc; thus, it may be helpful to review as-pects of that research. In the mid-1970s, Krugmanpostulated that the right and left brain division al-iowed the right brain to monitor nonverbal stimuliwithout cognitive engagement (1977, 1986). Thus,people could be persuaded by nonverbal elements inadvertising without verbal traces to recall. Krugman'sthesis was not that nonverbal elements were alwaysprocessed by the right brain and, therefore, not re-membered in verbal form. Rather, he argued that theright brain's longer attention span sometimes allowedit to monitor stimuli, calling in left-brain functionsonly as needed. The activities of the right and leftbrain are now thought to be substantially integrated,particularly in the processing of rich symbolic mate-rial such as found in ads. But research on nonverbalelements in advertising retains a trace of this thinkingin a tendency to assume that nonverbal elements areprocessed in an affective, unconscious, right-brainedmanner. Of course, the notion that nonverbal ele-ments never leave traces, verbal or otherwise, is falsi-fiable. The fact that I could cite three nonverbal com-mercials in the first paragraph of this article—and

JINGLES AND NEEDLEDROP 225

that most readers will recognize them and recall theirmusical elements—tends to disprove the notion thatsuch stimuli are always processed unconsciously and,therefore, are not remembered.

Zajonc's thesis that affect can occur independentlyof cognition (Zajonc 1980; Zajonc and Markus 1982)is used to support research designs that assume musicis a stimulus that always works independently of"cog-nition (e.g.. Park and Young 1986, p. 14). Zajonc(1980, p. 154) has repeatedly stressed that the usualcase is for thought and affect to occur together: "Innearly all cases, however, feeling is not free ofthought, nor is thought free of feeling." The furtherequation of nonverbal elements with affective re-sponse is also counter to Zajonc's (1980, p. 165) argu-ments, which stress the emotional effects of "cogni-tive" stimuli and vice versa.

As a theoretical basis, some experimental research-ers have cited Cialdini (1984), whose theory of per-suasion relies on highly structured social situations ofliking, such as Tupperware parties and good cop/badcop ploys. The interpretive jump from these interac-tive group situations to music as an automatic routeto persuasion is a large one. Further, Cialdini's adviceto resist certain advertising appeals would be mean-ingless if consumers were indeed powerless to resist orrecognize emotional manipulation by musical tones.

It is conventional in Western thought to believethat musical effects can be equated with emotionalones (Dowling and Harwood 1986, p. 202; Farns-worth 1958, p. 86; Merriam 1964, p. 266). However,past inquiry has revealed difficulties in this concept.First, even if musical effects were restricted to emo-tional appeals, we would soon find that music canboth affect and represent the emotions, not necessar-ily simultaneously or in similar ways (Dowling andHarwood 1986, pp. 202-203; Farnsworth 1958, pp.86-95). This results in interpretive listening, whichintrinsically distances the hearer and lessens the plau-sibility of automatic attachments caused by tone assuch (Meyer 1956, p. 11). Second, the assumptionthat tonal forms automatically arouse moods andemotions is counter to experience and practice. AsFarnsworth (1958, p. 94) notes, "Psychiatrists andclinical psychologists would no doubt rejoice if allthey needed to cure the depressed or maniacal wereaccess to a variety of compositions whose 'moods'had previously been carefully catalogued. Therapyunder such circumstances could be administered intruly engineering fashion—composition X for onedisturbance and Y for another."

Music's functional role in an ad, according to thispositive affect theory, would be as pleasant back-ground (Gorn 1982, p. 94; Park and Young 1986, pp.11-12; Simpkins and Smith 1974, p. 362; Stout andLeckenby 1988, p. 207). Thus, the affective constructis essentially sensualistic: respondents are presumed

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 sub-stantially to music research as both theorist and em-piricist, calls this the error of hedonism, "the confu-sion of" aesthetic experience with the sensuouslypleasing," an approach that overlooks the communi-cative meaning that a musical piece may have. Ac-cording to Meyer, hedonistic conceptions of musicare made manifest in the "testing of pleasure-displea-sure reactions to simple sound or elementary soundcomplexes." Tests of bipolar musical coding based ona sensualistic theory of music abound in advertisingresearch. Yet even a small sample of musical adsshows many ways in which music actually communi-cates, as we shall see.

Method and MethodologyStudies of music iri advertising have been con-

structed by a theory of music as an emotionally ma-nipulative stimulus that appears as a sensual back-drop and operates without cognitive intervention toachieve affective attachment. The tones themselvesare thought to work independently and affectively,without semantic content, almost like a mood-alter-ing drug. Methodologically then, isolating the musicfrom the message is unproblematic, since the effectofthe music is presumed to occur independently ofmeaning or context. This in turn leads to researchprocedures such as absence/presence coding, separa-tion of musical modes or keys, and tests that presentan austere visual with semantically unrelated music.These procedures exemplify what Meyer (1956, p. 5)has called the error of atomism, "the attempt to ex-plain and understand music as a succession of separa-ble, discrete sounds and sound complexes."

The theoretical assumptions about the nature ofmusic that underpin the methodology of separating itsyntactically lead to procedures that negate the com-plex functionality of the music. Procedurally, thestudies can be grouped into two eategories. In the firsttype, a laboratory setting was used to test responses tosimulated ads with music (e.g., Gorn 1982; Kellarisand Cox 1989; Mitchell 1988; Park and Young 1986;Simpkins and Smith 1974). Responses usually in-volved an artificially constructed buying behavior orpresumed antecedent, although one study used bipo-lar ratings of emotional effects (Stout and Rust 1986).Nearly all experiments used static visual stimuli(cards or slides) with musical accompaniment, andthe visuals were denuded of significant verbal or vi-sual appeal to isolate the effect of the musie. In nocase using these artificial stimuli did the music havea semantic relationship to the visual stimulus. Re-spondents were generally pretested to determine mu-sical preference (or "compatibility" or "pleasant-

226 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

ness") on the hypothesis that more favorable buyingbehavior would be correlated with preferred music. Insome instances, liking was mediated by some bipolardescriptor, such as happy/sad. Some significant re-sults were found, but most showed no differences,correlated in unexpected ways, or conflicted inter-nally (Mitchell 1988, pp. 140-141; Park and Young1986, p. 21; Stout and Rust 1986).

In contrast to the laboratory experiments, otherstudies tested large groups of real ads in an attempt tocorrelate the presence of music in the aggregate to asimilarly aggregated effect (Burke Marketing Re-search 1978; Haley et al. 1984; McCollum/Spielmanand Company 1976; McEwen and Leavitt 1976;Ogiivy and Raphaelson 1982; Radio Recall Research1981; Sewall and Sarel 1986; Stewart and Furse 1986;Stout and Leckenby 1988). Spots were first coded for"executional elements"; coding for music was usuallyabsence/presence, but sometimes additional bipolarcodes (happy/sad, melody/no melody) were used.

In each ofthese large-sample studies, the spots weretested for responses from groups of consumers; thenthe aggregate elements and responses were studied forcorrelations. The correlations were simple indepen-dent/dependent variable constructs: that is, the rela-tionship of music to recall or to persuasion. Noneconsidered the interdependence ofthe executional el-ements themselves—the interaction of visual, verbal,and musical elements.^ No significant correlation be-tween music and response was found in any of thisresearch.

The situations and instruments used in these stud-ies—bipolar coding, emotional descriptors, isolationfrom meaningful context, undiscriminating aggrega-tion—reflect the implicit theory. Further, the designof each study and the phrasing of conclusions weregenerally based on the convention that if correlationsto response were found, they would suggest that theabsence or presence ofmusic or a particular musicalform might be generalized in its effects. This is thethird error of music research identified by Meyer(1956, p. 5), the error of universalism, or "the beliefthat the responses obtained by experiment or other-wise are universal, natural, and necessary" and thus"good for all times and all places." In advertising re-search, universalism underpins conclusions that pref-erences for a given mode, tone, or style will holdacross a variety of advertising exposures. Such an as-sumption precludes consumers' ability to judge andunderstand various styles and melodies as appropri-

^McEwen and Leavitt did study the interaction of "elemental fac-tors." but these were groups of elements that cut across what wenormally consider executional elements, such as music and visuals.For instance, music in this study was an absence/presence descrip-tor grouped under a larger elemental factor called "pleasant liveli-ness." which included the presence of visual dissolves and the in-clusion of children or babies.

ate and communicative in particular message con-texts, exclusive of personal taste. Again, the assump-tion reflects a theory ofmusic in which tones result ineffects without interpretation, mediation, or judg-ment on the part ofthe listener.

When correlations were not found or were contra-dictory in these studies, researchers sometimes con-cluded that the "compatible music" had no effect(Simpkins and Smith 1974) and sometimes sought torefine their theory of processing (but not their theoryofmusic; Park and Young [1986]). A few suggestedthat perhaps music required a more complex concep-tualization (Haley et al. 1984; Stout and Leckenby1988). It is to this last need that this article is ad-dressed.

MUSIC, MEMORY, AND CULTURE

The recognition and comprehension of any form ofmusic—virtually the ability to perceive it as some-thing other than noise—is now considered a learnedskill acquired through years of enculturation and ac-tivated through memory (Dowling and Harwood1986, p. 4; Merriam 1964, p. 297; Meyer 1967, p. 7;Zuckerkandl 1956, p. 64). Although invoked as intu-itively and seemingly unconsciously as grammar, lis-tening ability is no less the product of social training(Blacking 1973, 1981). Interpreting music, then, is aconvention-based act, just like reading or looking atpictures.

It is clear from the work of schema theorists in thearts (Gombrich 1960; Iser 1978; Meyer 1956, 1967)that understanding a complex message like an adwould involve evoking several symbolic schemata—a huge regression of past exposures to pictures, words,sounds, and ads—and the making and matching of"many hypotheses according to learned conventions.The simplest response to an ad thus requires the re-trieval of"a storehouse of cultural information, as wellas higher level manipulation ofthe present communi-cation (Dowling and Harwood 1986, p. 4). The con-sumer's evaluation ofthe ad or the product necessar-ily follows a complex, highly symbolie enterprise re-quired to find the ad intelligible at all.

Further, each encounter with a given symbolicform results in its being recast by the present instance(Shepherd 1977, p. 19), because learning to interpretcultural material is not a skill that is learned once,like multiplication tables, but a continuing, lifelongexperience (Dowling and Harwood 1986, p. 4; Mer-riam 1964, p. 146). Importantly, enculturation takesplace in the larger context of styles and norms, whiehare "never static . . . on the contrary, dynamic andever-changing" (Merriam 1964, p. 162). Finally, boththe exhibition of response behavior and the verbal ex-planation of response are socially mediated (Meyer

JINGLES AND NEEDLEDROP 227

1956; Nisbett and Wilson 1977). Clearly, the cultura'implications in studying the role of music in advertising are enormous. Yet one ofthe most arresting weak-nesses ofthe studies discussed here is their universaltendency to separate advertising from its social andcultural context.

FRAMING THE SOCIAL CONTEXTOF ADVERTISING

Ifour concern is to understand music in communi-cations, we must recognize the social character ofthemusical communication process. According to Feld(1984, p. 6), "The listener is implicated as a sociallyand historically situated being, not just as organs thatreceive and respond to stimuli. . . . For this reason,a description, and a theory ofthe musical encountermust be sensitive to the biographies of the object/events and actors in question. . . .In short, the musi-cal object is never isolated, any more than are its lis-teners or its producers."

The first step in viewing music as a socially situated,communicative experience is to recognize that musi-cal responses are not biologically imbedded but arethoroughly learned. There are two important conse-quences to this. First, it means that communicationof meaning through music is based on systems of cul-tural conventions and, thus, interpretations are notidiosyncratic but largely shared. Second, it meansthat each musical communication is framed by thesum of the listener's past listening experience. Thephrase "past experience" includes the immediatetemporal experience of the particular stimulus (i.e.,the message syntax) as well as the more remote, yetever-present, past experience of similar musical stim-uli and similar musical situations in other works, in-cluding other ads (Meyer 1956, p. 36). Thus, each ad-vertising experience is framed by all those that pre-ceded it.

We approach an ad as we approach a novel, sym-phony, or sculpture—by framing it with a set of ex-pectations (Feld 1984; Gombrich 1960; Meyer 1956,p. 73; Iser 1978). Our expectations are based on theaxioms of the culture, mediated by our own experi-ences, whether individual or sJiared. We learnthrough our enculturation to approach ads with prej-udice, fascination, and skepticism. The lack of recog-nition of this framing step causes considerable biasin advertising research, which formulates an audiencesearching for product information, compliantlyforming positive brand attitudes, and resolving inten-tions to purchase. A more accurate formulationmight be television viewers who roll their eyes, sigh,and go for a snack when the commercials come on.

Ads are inherently self-interested messages. Know-ing that, a viewer comes to any commercial by fram-

ing it as a self-serving piece of rhetoric (Festinger andMaccoby 1968). The conventions of commercialplacements prepare us to invoke that frame as a de-fensive move (Allyn and Festinger 1961). So theviewer, far from being driven to submission by affect-producing nonverbal elements, is often holding backfrom acceptance ofthe message, waiting for an excuseto dismiss the communication as "just more advertis-ing hype." In this way, "knowledge and experienceoften color or modify our opinions about what isheard" (Meyer 1956, p. 78). This kind of wary stanceis not the sort of behavior that leads to classical condi-tioning.

Given the skepticism ofthe viewer, it is part ofthework of the executional elements of advertising tohelp make the essential proposition more suasive.The music in an ad may perform any number of rhe-torical tasks: supporting arguments, demonstratingclaims, building a ground for mutual confidence,catching and holding attention, and providing a vehi-cle for repetition and remembrance. Music servesthese functions only by virtue of shared culturalmeaning.

Important to the functioning ofmusic as rhetoric isthe notion of style, the manner in which a message iscommunicated. Style in communications is no merefrill but a necessary and omnipresent attribute of anysymbolic vehicle (Burke 1973, pp. 126-129). No mes-sage can be crafted without the appearance of style,regardless ofthe medium, and musical messages areno exception: "The meaning ofa tone, however, liesnot in what itpointstobut/« ;/iepo/rt//«^//.ye//! . . .The meaning is not the thing indicated but the man-ner of indicating" (Zuckerkandl 1956, p. 68). Musicalstyles are artificial constructs developed by musiciansat specific times within specific cultures (Meyer 1956,p. 60). Their meaning—and intended effects—musttherefore be understood historically. Responses tomusical styles depend not on natural, universal re-sponses or on learned denotative meanings but onhabits of listening, acquired and adapted through on-going enculturation (Meyer 1956, p. 61). Music is inno way a universal language but is shaped by the cul-ture of whieh it is a part; in the texts it uses, it commu-nicates direct information to those who understandthe language and style in which it is couched (Mer-riam 1964, p. 223; Meyer 1967, p. 7).

By using eertain visual, verbal, and musical styles,an advertiser makes a meaningful choice from amonga variety of possibilities. The viewer interprets the sty-listic choices as a sign indicative of the character orintent ofthe communicator (Aristotle 1954, pp. 164-218; Burke 1969, pp. 49-64; Feld 1984, p. 2). Thusthe style itself has meaning. Since the musical sign inan ad is understood by the hearer to be purposive, wemust interpret it by addressing function. Because thesame sign may serve very different functions or may

228JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

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

MUSIC AS A FUNCTIONAL ELEMENTIN ADVERTISING

Music in advertising is part of "an interdependenceof elements which is complex, intermediate, and re-ciprocal, as against the simple, direct, and irreversibledependence implied in classical causality" (S. F. Na-del, quoted in Merriam 1964, p. 215). It is active,playing a part, and making a contribution to the totaltask. As such, music should not be isolated from thecomplex interrelationship of verbal and visual sym-bols that always accompany it in a specific message.

Music never appears in an advertising context with-out at least one other executional element: the an-nouncer voice-over, the words in a jingle, or the pho-tography in a television commercial. These elementsvary in their relationship to the music, depending onthe function the music has in the particular commer-cial. The meaning ofthe music is determined by thisrelationship and does not inhere in the tones per se.Just as words in a language become meaningful byvirtue of being joined in a system of relationshipscalled a grammar, the elements in a commercial aremade meaningful by their relationships to each other.According to Langer (1942, p. 67), "Grammaticalstructure, then, is a further source of significance. Wecannot call it a symbol, since it is not even a term;but it has a symbolific mission. It ties together severalsymbols, each with at least a fragmentary connota-tion of its own, to make one complex term, whosemeaning is a special constellation of all the connota-tions involved. What the special constellation is, de-pends on the syntactical relations within the complexsymbol, or proposition." So the combination of non-verbal elements in an ad comes to have meaning viaa peculiar sort of grammar that can employ all thesesymbols simultaneously: words, voice, music, color,shape, and motion. And it can do so in as many vari-ous ways as a grammar in language can construct sen-tences from individual words. Just as the representa-tion and impaet of different parts of speech will varyfrom sentence to sentence, the salience and impact ofmusic (or pictures) will vary from ad to ad. Thus, theexpectation that the relationship between music andconsumer response will be consistent is not realistic.

In language, two sentences may be equally gram-matical and comprehensible but not be equally inter-esting, pleasing, seductive, or persuasive. For exam-ple, "See John run" is just as grammatical, but not

nearly as intriguing, as, "It was the best of times; itwas the worst of times." Although equally grammati-cal, the sentences are likely to be evaluated differ-ently. In examples of advertising, generalizations areoften based on tests of static pictures systematicallystripped of verbal or visual appeal and accompaniedby unrelated music. Such generalizations are clearlyfounded on a "see John run" test. The leap from plainphotographs accompanied by Benny Goodman toRobert Palmer and his postmodern Rockettes' mes-sage that Pepsi is "simply irresistible" is one that re-quires more than faith. It demands an absence of criti-cal judgment. Ads, like sentences, symphonies, andsculptures, vary in quality and impact. Tests that donot recognize this overlook the consumer's ability todiscriminate among commercials.

Just as grammar allows us to generate and under-stand an infinite number of sentences and culturalconventions allow us to interpret poetry, newspaperreports, and VCR instructions, we interpret advertis-ing in a given context, using shared cultural experi-ence. Through convention and grammar, advertisingmusic can function with at least as much variabilityas language: it can be informative or affective, it candenote or connote. Music can structure time, simu-late motion, and support repetition. The demonstra-tions that follow are intended to illustrate, and thusact as evidence for, the proposition that music per-forms a variety of functions in its contribution to theoverall rhetorical task of advertising. Several com-mercials will be described in sufficient detail for read-ers to either recall or imagine them. If a reader wishesto obtain video copies ofthe commercials, the names,dates, and agencies, as well as the Radio TV Reportsidentification numbers, have been provided in Table1. In each commercial, music will be shown to beplaying a different role, to contribute to persuasion,and to require interpretation. And we will see that thetraditional research constructs would have obscuredthe rhetorical work ofthe music.

Dissonance/Consonance: Bayer AspirinA recent commercial for Bayer aspirin opens

abruptly with a shot ofa man in pain and the sound ofdissonant music. Within seconds, a billboard flashes ablack-and-white message: "Pain." Then we see a se-ries of flashes of various people rubbing their bodiesin gestures of discomfort, accompanied by heighten-ing aural dissonance. After a few ofthese pictures, weare shown a quiek image ofa Bayer aspirin bottle. In-termittently, with the continued images, the productpitch starts. As the announcer builds his case, the dis-sonant music almost imperceptibly becomes conso-nant. The people now are smiling, relieved. Bayer as-pirin has done its work.

This commercial is playing on the widely under-stood meaning for consonance and dissonance: "It is

JINGLES AND NEEDLEDROP 229

TABLE 1

MUSIC IN COMMERCIALS: EIGHT DEMONSTRATIONS

Product Year Commercial name Advertising agencyIdentification

number

Bayer aspirinHonda LXDiet CokeAlleractMatchlight charcoalCalifornia raisinsLevi s 501 jeansPepsi

19891988198219891988198219841989

•Pain"'Rough Idea"'Premiere"'Sneak Attack"'The Moment of Truth'Rondo"'Bluesman"'Robert Palmer"

Lintas. New YorkRubin Postaer. Los AngelesLintas. New YorkMcCaffery & McCall. New YorkDDB-Needham. ChicagoFoote. Cone & Beiding. San FranciscoFoote. Cone & Beiding. San FranciscoBBDO, New York

89-0504388-1136582-1563489-0483288-0556982-2026084-1601189-02229

NOTE.—The identification number is from Radio TV Reports.

evident, no matter what theory we adopt, that conso-nance represents the element of normalcy and repose,[dissonance] the no less important element of irregu-larity and disturbance" (Meyer 1956, p. 231). Itwould be natural to assume that our response to thisgrating sound is instinctive, working on pain-avoid-ance principle. What is actually happening here is notinstinctive, however, but a learned response to a cul-turally construed notion of noise. Although all cul-tures have some concept of dissonance (Meyer 1956,p. 229), the particular notion of what sounds actuallyare dissonant varies from culture to culture, indicat-ing that recognition of dissonance is culturally deter-mined, socially mediated, and learned (Dowling andHarwood 1986). "For consonance and dissonance arenot primarily acoustical phenomena, rather they arehuman mental phenomena and as such they dependfor their definition upon the psychological laws gov-erning human perception, upon the context in whichthe perception arises, and upon the learned responsepatterns which are part of this context" (Meyer 1956,p. 229). Thus, what we might interpret as a phenome-non occurring in nature is, in fact, a metaphor. Yetit is in this apparent naturalness that the artifice ofmetaphor finds its strongest power: the metaphoricalis felt to be naturally real, obvious, and complete.

Even the naturalness of this metaphor needs inter-preting within the framework ofthe commercial. Wedo not merely cover our ears in reaction but under-stand quickly, on the basis of our past experienceswith advertising, that this dissonance is part of aneffort to tell us something. To understand what thatsomething is, we must attend to other parts of themessage: "No particular connotation is an inevitableproduct ofa given musical organization, since the as-sociation of a specific musical organization with aparticular referential experience depends upon thebeliefs and attitudes ofthe culture toward the experi-ence" (Meyer 1956, p. 262). Dissonance is often usedin music as a foil against which consonance can be"more gloriously" present (Zuckerkandl 1956, p.

106). A similar construct is used in the Bayer com-mercial; the resolution ofthe dissonance into conso-nance parallels the structure ofa problem and solu-tion within the ad.

So, by invoking both our past experiences with dis-sonance and consonance and our schema for prob-lem/solution advertising, we are easily able to inter-pret the intended meaning: Bayer aspirin makes paingo away. The music in this spot has accomplished twotasks. It has reproduced the affect of discomfort andthe peace of repose, while demonstrating productbenefit with a higher-level cognitive operation of met-aphor. Thus, it has functioned efficiently as a rhetori-cal device.

Note that the kind of bipolar, "liked-disliked" mu-sic construct of many research strategies would haveobscured this meaning. Certainly no one would re-port liking the music. Yet its use is persuasive.

Representing Motion: Honda LXA Honda LX spot opens with a familiar situation:

a driver wants to pass a slow "eighteen-wheeler" on anarrow country road. An opportunity opens up whena 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, clearlydesignating the movement of the little Honda as itpresses to pass the truck.

In this spot, the music is working to describe thespeediness ofthe car while heightening the tension ofthe narrative, helping to hold our attention. Music'sability to represent motion is widely recognized anda time-honored use (Zuckerkandl 1956, pp. 79-95).However, it is important to note also the substitut-ability of this particular piece in representing the mo-tion ofthe car. Any number of other sprightly repre-sentations of motion in musical form would haveworked for this task. (From this phenomenon comesthe whole industry of "needledrop" music.) Note alsothat this particular melody, in another context, could

230 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

take on many other meanings: a hostess franticallymaking last-minute adjustments to the buffet table,children scrambling up a tree, a young man unload-ing groceries from a car, and so on. It is this principleof synonymity that is at the basis of cultural interpre-tation, as distinguished from lexically oriented sys-tems of meaning (see Hirsch 1976, pp. 50-73). Sincethis piece is potentially synonymous with other musi-cal notations, we interpret it with the aid ofthe relatedvisual. The meaning ofthe music would be lost if sep-arated grammatically from its visual term.

Rhythm and Repetition: Diet Coke

The Diet Coke jingle is well known. The introduc-tory spot employed a staged Radio City premiere witha cast of hundreds of celebrities. The Rockettes dancearound a gargantuan Diet Coke while waiters servesamples on silver trays. There is no auditory messageexcept the jingle. The lyrics themselves are the kindof advertising message that has meaning only for abrand 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 fameOfthe 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 self-congratulatory verbals. What is persuasive is thecrowd of celebrities and the rhythmic movement ofthe repeated rising tones in the jingle.

Rhythm, like consonance and dissonance, is cul-turally determined: "We must not forget that what wecall rhythm in music is a comparatively new thing,unknown to antiquity and the Middle Ages" (Zucker-kandl 1956, pp. 76-77). But the definite intent in thewavelike pattern in a rhythmic motion like this is oneof the most forceful in modern Western culture.Rhythmic motion and patterned tones are tradition-ally used in situations to elicit group solidarity in ac-tion (Zuckerkandl 1956, pp. 173-174).

In this particular instance, the music is also helpingto carry the ridiculous repetitiveness in the words—an important task in advertising, where repetition iskey. Music not only supports repetition but can make

it pleasurable when other forms would be grating andnonsensical (Zuckerkandl 1956, pp. 213-214). Fur-ther, rhythmic repetition in music creates a growingsense of accomplishment. In rhetoric, this sense of ac-complishment is called "formal assent." Burke(1969, pp. 58-59) explains, "We know that manypurely formal patterns can readily awaken an attitudeof collaborative expectancy in us. For instance, imag-ine a passage built about a set of oppositions ('we dothis, 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 invitesparticipation.. . by the time you arrive at the secondof its three stages, you feel how it is destined to de-velop—and on the level of purely formal assent youwould collaborate to round out its symmetry by spon-taneously willing its completion and perfection as anutterance." Thus, through its unrelentingly rhyth-mic, ascending, and repetitive pattern, particularly ina visual matrix of social approval, the music in theDiet Coke commercial is doing the lion's share oftherhetorical work through the mechanism of formal as-sent.

Music as Narrative: AlleractA recent Alleract commercial operates on that well-

known cultural form, the narrative, using conven-tional denotations of musical instruments (see Mer-riam 1964, p. 237). An allergy sufferer sits on a parkbench. Strings are plucked suspensefully as, behindhim, animated trees and plants—presumably carry-ing allergenic pollens—creep up to the bench. He be-gins to sniffle and sneeze. A snare drum signals theclimax. Then the sound of trumpets declares the res-cue as the product is introduced as the hero. Finally,the narrative is briefly reprised both visually and mu-sically. While the product pitch in this commercial isbeing given by the announcer voice-over, a simulta-neous narrative is being carried by the musical ac-companiment and visuals. Notice that relegating thismusic to mere "pleasant background music withouta melody" would completely obscure its functionalityin narrating the rescue ofthe hay-fever sufferer by theproduct.

Childhood experiences with pieces such as "Peterand the Wolf are the basis for our ability to interpretmusic narratively. Holbrook (1986, 1988) has re-counted personal experiences that demonstrate thecultural and individual forces that shape our conceptsof artifactual meaning. In particular, he tells of hisfear on first hearing "Peter and the Wolf." These sin-gular fears, related to his own injuries and develop-ment, were embroidered on the cultural meaning ofthe piece as a fearsome narrative (1988). In this way,interpretations of cultural artifacts come to have indi-vidualized meanings while resting on a large base of

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shared significance. The challenge of musical com-munications research, then, would be to find that areain which interpretation converges and is no longer id-iosyncratic but shared.

"Locating": Matchlight CharcoalThe current Matchlight charcoal campaign dra-

matizes ease of use via sports metaphors. In one ad, aman wearing jeans and a baseball cap emerges fromhis basement and walks toward the barbeque pit. Wehear the familiar organ music ofthe ballpark, increas-ing the tension through dramatic chords. The man'sfamily looks on with apprehension; his wife offershim lighter fluid. The man "pitches" a lighted matchinto the pit, and it lands on a bag of Matchlight char-coal. As the flames catch, the family looks happy anddinner begins; the organ music changes to that dis-tinctive scramble of triumphant chords that one hearsat the ballpark when a home run or other celebrativeevent occurs.

The music here operates through the interpretivemove that Feld (1984) describes as "locating." In thiscase, the location is a specific kind of experience,American baseball games, that the viewer must haveto interpret the commercial. Thus, the message is in-tentionally audience-selective. The appeal, however,is not based on musical taste but on what the musicsignifies about a lived experience. Retrieval of that ex-perience is necessary to understanding the meaningon all levels: visual, verbal, and musical. The music,then, is part ofa complex syntax that argues throughsports metaphors, and it must be understood on acognitive level. Although the intended viewer mayhave—and probably does have—a positive associa-tion and affect toward the commercial, to say that thisspot works through affective response and automaticattachment would be reductive in the extreme.

Structuring Time: California RaisinsIn a 1983 Clio-winning commercial, Mozart's

"Rondo alia Turca" provides a dizzying dive through30 seconds of unconventional recipes using Califor-nia raisins. A feminine voice sings about the recipesso quickly that the words are nearly unintelligible. Alegion of dishes sails by. The raisins fall on them inslow motion, opposing the speed ofthe music. Oncethe spot begins, most viewers are held to the end andperceive the experience as shorter than 30 seconds.

This spot demonstrates music's well-known abilityto structure time, creating a time sequence that isdifferent, bracketed from the normal, perceived flowofevents (Dowling and Harwood 1986, pp. 182-184).In a rhetorical sense, the music in the raisins commer-cial interrupts the surrounding commercial flow bycreating a virtual "time-space." And one need be only

passingly familiar with classical music to know thatthis is a soft send-up of so-called serious music. Itsflouting of convention is both musical and culinary.Therefore, we can see that a coding system designedto correlate preferences for "classical" versus "popu-lar" music would entirely miss the point.

Forging Identifications: Levi's "Bluesman"

The Levi's 501 campaign that began in 1984 play-fully centers around the color and word "blue."There are blue jeans, blue film, and the blues—in onead, a young man even paints his sneakers blue. In anearly spot, a Clio winner, the Hghthearted interludesof urban youth are paradoxically interspersed withthe image of a black man sitting in a window andquietly playing the blues. He is clearly the singer ofthe music, but his image seems incongruous with theothers. He is older, immobile, boxed in. He is recog-nizable as the archetypal rural bluesman (Keil 1966,pp. 34-36)—hence, the title ofthe spot.

We could interpret this as a casual use of popularmusic. This campaign capitalized on the crossover ofblack artists into the niainstream pop audience in themid-1980s (Perry 1988, pp. 51 -54) and the rise oftheblues in popularity among white audiences (Keil1966, p. 79). But I suggest that this spot is a dialogicrepresentation of the phenomenon of play and sub-cultural forms found between urban white youth (es-pecially working class) and black culture. The conflictbetween urban youth's exclusion from mature rolesand their exposure to an ethic of material success of-ten results in a hedonistic approach to life and anadoption of other cultural forms that articulate alien-ation (Shepherd 1985). In particular, the adoption ofblues and other black musical forms by white work-ing-class youth has been observed. Thus, the playful-ness and the bluesman represent a dialogic approachto identifying with alienation. Meaning is beingplayed out through a multivoiced discourse—thevoice of urban youth, the voice ofthe bluesman—rep-resented within a fictive construct (Bakhtin 1981).

This spot speaks through an identification betweenclasses, as opposed to insinuating a direct identifica-tion between advertiser and consumer. The mostclearly marked carrier ofthe identification is the mu-sic. As Burke (1969, pp. 19-27) explains, the need forcommunication exists only in our division from eachother; we communicate through simple and some-times small areas of consubstantiation—a taste forthe blues, for example—and in so doing forge identi-fications. As Burke (1973), Bakhtin (1981), and Iser(1978) have made clear, even fictive constructs—novels, poems, proverbs—are interested communica-tions, and rhetorical intent is active even in the fictiverepresentation here. Thus, this interplay between ur-ban youth and rural bluesman insinuates the interests

232 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

ofthe advertiser through the device of an identifyingmetonymy—blues and blue jeans.^

Musical Ethos: PepsiIn one ofthe Pepsi rock-star endorsements, a col-

lage of product shots and fountains is interspersedwith Robert Palmer and a fashionably dressed, poker-faced contingent of young women, who are at oncereminiscent of beauty-pageant contestants, the Rock-ettes, and Esther Williams movies. Palmer is singinga version of his hit song "Simply Irresistible"; thecommercial visually mimics the video. Thus, thecommercial refers to a product, a song, a video—aswell as to Miss America, Radio City extravaganzas,and water ballet. By referring to so many culturaltexts, this spot exemplifies what is called "intertextu-ality." As a typically postmodern artifact, the mean-ing of this ad is in the free play between all these tex-tual references. Inferring the meaning is a complex,impressionistic, and highly creative enterprise for theviewer.

The increasing economic interdependence amongrock stars, record companies, music television, andadvertising agencies draws the meanings of products,records, stars, and videos ever closer together (Frith1988). It becomes difliicult to sort out a separatemeaning from these interrelated texts. In this case,the lyrics ("anything but typical. . . simply irresist-ible") are fortuitous for the product. But, for the in-tended audience, the song is not necessarily referen-tial—as a typical jingle would be. What the song, thestar, and the women are doing is pointing to an ethos,which in rhetorical terminology means the fictivelyconstructed implied speaker. It is neither the actualspeaker (Pepsico) nor the visualized character (Rob-ert Palmer) but an entity somewhere in between. Anethos is constituted through sketchy references calleddeictics. cues that must be assembled to see a clearpersonality (see Culler 1975, pp. 164-166). Here, theethos is the Pepsi Generation, a 25-year-old fictiveconstruct that has been carefully maintained by up-dating the deixis—the system of visual and musicalcues—periodically. This allows an appeal to a tar-geted audience familiar with both the music and thevisual language. Other viewers may or may not bepleased by the presentation, but they will know towhom the message is directed. Here we address thefact that musical signs may have varied effects onviewers, even from the same culture. According toMerriam (1964, p. 271), "Connotations will varyeven among those who do have the same cultural

' A metonymy is a rhetorical figure based on adjacency or conti-guity. That is, the relationship is possible merely because the twoobjects happen to occur together. Thus, metonymy often draws as-sociations in which the relationships are accidental or trivial.

background and who are acquainted with the modesof association established within the style. However,this variation, though significant, is often not as wideas it seems at first glance. . . . In other words, whileit is true that on one level (that of specific meaning)the ideas entertained by various listeners are patentlydifferent, on another level (the level of symbolic andmetaphorical meaning) the concepts entertained bythe various listeners are very similar."

Pepsi commercials continually update the signifiersand, thus, the appeal to a youthful audience. Olderviewers may not interpret the music in exactly thesame way as the intended audience or be affected byit in a similar way. But this does not mean they do notunderstand it. On the contrary, they understand thatthe intended purpose is to appeal to other groups.

Notice that it is through the changes of style (notonly ofmusic but of clothing and other signifiers) thatthe Pepsi Generation continues to be young in spiteof its advancing years as an ethos. The adoption ofa particular style of delivery as a means of buildingmutual confidence between speaker and listener is adevice that rhetoricians have recognized since classi-cal times (Corbett 1965, pp. 26-27). The rhetoricaleffectiveness of a given style, however, depends onhow it is interpreted in a particular culture at a partic-ular historical moment. Thus, any model ascribing acertain style of music as most effective with this agegroup would fail to be predictive because it lacks dy-namics. Such a model would be potentially falsifiedwith every new Top 40 list. This is but one example ofthe need to ground musical tests in a sense of culturaltemporality—that is, in history. A disco style thatmight have been appropriate to the Pepsi ethos in1978 would have seemed hopelessly dated and unap-pealing to young audiences in 1988. The blues oftherural black man once had particular meaning for aspecific subculture; this style has now, according tosome critics, lost its subcultural edge and been co-opted by the dominant culture in the form of thewhite record industry—and the advertising industry(Perry 1988). Holbrook (1986) has chronicled hisown travails in maintaining a taste for jazz against thevagaries of popular trends. The historicity of musicaltastes in general has recently been demonstrated byHolbrook and Schindler (1989). Thus, studies that at-tempt to identify ideal relationships based on musicalpreferences suffer from the failure to recognize the dy-namics of style.

RECOMMENDATIONS FORFUTURE RESEARCH

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

JINGLES AND NEEDLEDROP 233

interpret it away, belittle it, or garble it, in order tomake it easier to understand. The question is not "Atwhat view ofthe phenomenon must we arrive in orderto explain it in accordance with one or another philoso-phy?" but precisely the reverse: "What philosophy isrequisite ifwe are to live up to the subject, be on a levelwith it?" The question is not how the phenomenonmust be turned, twisted, narrowed, crippled so as to beexplicable, at all costs, upon principles that we haveonce and for all resolved not to go beyond. The ques-tion is: "To what point must we enlarge our thoughtso that it shall be in proportion to the phenomenon."[Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, epigraph inZuckerkandl (1956)]

I have illustrated here the complexity ofmusic as acultural form and the range of roles it can play as arhetorical element in an ad. The foregoing argumentsthus constitute an alternative theory ofmusic as a ba-sis for advertising research, one in which music ismeaningful and language-like rather than affectiveand nonsemantic. This theory ofmusic is greatly ex-panded in terms of complexity and in terms of poten-tial explanatory power as well. It illustrates the prom-ise ofthe interpretive, or humanistic, paradigm thathas recently been under discussion in consumer re-search (Hirschman 1989; Lutz 1989). I do not, how-ever, wish to suggest that the proposed theory shouldnot bs subject to empirical investigation (see Calderand Tybout 1989); I am offering it as an alternativetheory to be negotiated and investigated empirically(Deshpande 1983). A careful review ofthe sourcesused to construct the argument for this theory wouldshow that it is already based on a combination of in-terpretive and empirical sources. However, adoptingsuch a concept would necessarily lead to a differentmethodology and, therefore, alternative proceduresfor research.

The most obvious difference is in the use of inter-pretive skills and language to develop a more sensitivegrasp ofthe ways that consumers may interpret musicin an ad. My hope is that this article might stimulatea discourse in which scholars share, negotiate, and re-fine knowledge about musical rhetoric in the way thatscholars in the humanities do (Hirschman 1986).Since advertising borrows from the arts in both formand content, it seems worthwhile to look at those dis-ciplines for a better understanding of how artifactualmeaning is constituted by both makers and users.Some researchers have already begun to analyze lan-guage and visuals in ads through literary criticism orsemiotics (Stern 1989); it seems reasonable to arguethat doing the same with music would be fruitful. AsSherry (1990, p. 43) has argued in his analysis ofthepostmodern potential for consumer research, thiswould require honing interpretive skills in a way thathas not been traditional in consumer research, yet itcould reveal the "virtually unrecognized limits our

conventionally-framed construals of persuasive com-munication have placed upon our insight."

To accommodate such notions as style and locat-ing, we would need to formulate interpretive conceptswith a historical base of advertising samples. Thiswould require some things that are still in short sup-ply in the discipline—archives and histories (Pollay1979). Although several institutions now have adver-tising archives, we are a long way from having ashared, easily accessible record of texts, such as thosein literature or the other arts. This situation is exem-plified by the need to describe and suggest avenues forprocuring the commercials interpreted in this paper.Yet these difficulties should not override the develop-ment of a historical sense of advertising forms; nei-ther marketing nor consumer culture are ahistoricalconstructs (Sherry 1990).

Because rhetorical theory tends to ground analysisin history and culture, it would become more evidentthat advertising, as an institution, is a speaker in po-litical as well as economic discourses. As Pollay(1986, 1987a) and Rogers (1987) have suggested, crit-ical approaches to consumption and ads could be ap-propriately added to'the domain of consumer re-search. Rogers has suggested the broadening ofmethod and scope, the triangulation of qualitativeand quantitative, to achieve this end. The power im-plications of ads are significant. Developing ideolo-gies of consumption, chemical use, race, class, genderrelations, and even warfare are evident in ads acrosstime. The Levi's 501 jeans commercial discussed hereis just one that suggests even music can be adapted toideology in advertising.

Taking advantage ofthe richness and theory-gener-ating ability of interpretive approaches does not pre-clude such things as quantification and does not rele-gate research to the idiosyncratic (Christians andCarey 1980). A major premise of this article is thatmusical meanings in ads are culturally based and,thus, socially defined and shared. So, although indi-vidual interpretation does occur, that understoodarea where the meaning can be seen as generally ac-ceptable can serve as an anchor for research (Culler1975; Hirsch 1976). Measurement of acceptable in-terpretations can then occur conceptually as the col-lective overlap of many individual interpretationsrather than as a one-to-one matching with the inter-pretations of the researchers. For example, given theAlleract commercial described previously, how manyallergy sufferers would describe it by telling a similarstory? How similar would they be to each other?

Hirsch (1976) and Culler (1975) have suggestedthat recognition of synonymity is a way of observingshared interpretations empirically. Substituting mu-sic of various tempos in the Honda ad and seeing howpeople recognize the semantic difference might beone way of doing this and would not require complex

234 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

articulation on the part of respondents. Successfulprecedent exists for using synonymity recognition asa basis for measuring musical meaning (Dowling andHarwood 1986, pp. 210-211).

Several interpretive writers mentioned here, in-cluding Geertz, Burke, and Blacking, have called fora statistical analysis of symbolic or musical meaningsin other contexts, on the basis of confluence of mean-ing or function, not form. This would result in an eth-nography of symbols (Geertz 1983) or a statistics ofthe symbolic (Burke 1973). This kind of study mightask questions about how often ads use music to desig-nate motion or to locate the viewer in the past andabout how people interpret these cues and with whatdegree of convergence.

By designing studies and instruments that look forconvergence, synonymity, and confluences of mean-ing, we might be able to quantify comprehension andresponse to music in ads with greater success than isnow being achieved. In sum, we do not have to viewthe development of an interpretive theory and theempirical exploration of that theory as mutually ex-clusive enterprises. Instead, each can enlighten theother in the form ofa triangulation (Deshpande 1983;Sherry 1990). Several ofthe writers cited in this arti-cle—Hirsch, Culler, Burke, and Iser—are literarycritics. In textual criticism, the infusion of empiricaldata into theory building has recently been a vibrantsource of learning, particularly in the area of reader-response theory and new historical criticism. Whatconstitutes empirical research often differs from theexperimental designs analyzed here, and the methodsI have proposed differ too, but the effort should bemade to ground theory in experience. One ofthe sig-nal symptoms of weakness in the studies discussedhere is that the theory ofmusic being used is not con-sistent with the way we experience the phenomenonin everyday life. The way out lies not in avoiding ob-servation and quantification but in avoiding ahistori-cism, reduction, and atomism. We must not let ourmethods drive our theories but must instead, in thespirit ofthe Schelling quotation, design our methodsin a way that can encompass whatever theory seemsarticulate enough to fully describe the phenomenon.In this way, the full potential ofa pluralistic perspec-tive can be achieved in the study of music, and inother areas of inquiry as well, as these approachescome across schisms to meet each other.

[Received September 1989. Revised April 1990.]

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