Chopin's Music in the 'Brand Theatre': From Directed Stimulation to Shared Meaning

The rapid development of sound recording and reproduction techniques in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has contributed to the consolidation of a 'new sound culture', characterised by 'acousmatic listening' to sounds separated from their original source and context. One of the most interesting examples is the use of classical music in different forms of marketing strategies, such as audiomarketing or sonic branding, to influence consumers' responses in agreement with the sender's intentions.The main aim of this paper is to present selected examples of Polish brands that construct their marketing strategies around Fryderyk Chopin's works in order to build appropriate brand experience and aura around a product or service in accordance with the rules of sensory marketing. The social enhancement model of music and the hierarchical model of musical semantics are the starting points for understanding the psychological mechanisms that determine the effectiveness of such activities. Overall, the analysis reveals that marketing practitioners focus on two complementary mechanisms ('directed stimulations' and 'directed associations'). Both processes can take part in the transmission of meanings especially on a group level. It leads to some controversies and ethical problems that appear when the boundary between persuasion and manipulation seems to be blurred.