In-store playlisting is the process of selecting and delivering curated music into commercial environments such as shops, fitness centres and hospitality venues. Specialist companies like Imagesound, C-BURN and Mood Media create tailored soundtracks that reflect the mood, pace and energy of each location, ensuring music supports the overall customer experience.
The music is licensed, regularly updated and delivered through dedicated systems installed across national and international chains. While originally created to enhance customer experience and brand perception, these playlists have evolved into a meaningful form of music discovery due to their scale and repetition.
In-store environments expose music to listeners in a way that is consistent and repeatable. Tracks played across retail, fitness and hospitality spaces can be heard multiple times throughout the day, creating familiarity even before a listener knows the artist.
Zizzi, which operates over 130 restaurants across the UK, uses curated soundtracks built around upbeat, feel-good music. Their briefs often favour tempos around 118 BPM and genres such as Indie, Pop, House and Funk, ensuring the music matches the atmosphere of each location.
This type of exposure across multiple brand sites often leads to genuine engagement, whether through Shazam activity, playlist adds or direct searches on streaming platforms. For emerging and independent artists, this creates a form of organic discovery that complements both editorial and algorithmic streaming strategies.
Recent music placement activity across the UK has shown that in-store visibility can lead to clear, measurable discovery signals. Tracks placed into high-footfall environments often generate Shazam activity within the first few days of exposure, particularly when the hook is distinctive or rhythmically memorable.
‘Still Dreaming’ by HABITS, a dance-leaning track placed into high-footfall gyms and leisure chains, generated more than 8,000 Shazams within its first few weeks of exposure. This early interest then translated into sustained streaming growth, including a significant uplift from Discover Weekly as listeners continued to return to the track from the point of real-world discovery.
Alongside Shazam activity, in-store playlisting can also contribute to a wider set of outcomes, such as:
These benefits vary by genre, rotation levels and environment type, but overall, they show how in-store exposure can support an artist’s growth in ways that sit outside traditional promotion.
Different brands tend to use music that aligns with their energy level, target consumer and atmosphere. Common patterns across the UK include:
These patterns show how genre choice is closely connected to brand positioning and the emotional environment each venue aims to create.
Swiss Pop Artist Alessia benefited from in-store play from H&M
In-store settings allow tracks to build recognition gradually because listeners are not consciously evaluating every piece of music they hear. The music played in commercial spaces is often selected to support specific moods such as energy in gyms, warmth in cafés, or shopping experiences in retail.
This low-pressure environment gives hooks, vocals and melodies room to embed without the continuous decision-making that streaming platforms often require.
Listeners who act after hearing a track in these environments tend to be highly motivated, as they have made a conscious effort to identify the song themselves. This behaviour often points to stronger long-term engagement than passive skips or background streams on DSP’s.
The connection between in-store music and streaming platforms is becoming increasingly integrated. Some major retailers are already trialling brand playlists on Spotify and Apple Music that mirror their in-store soundtracks, allowing customers to continue listening once they leave the venue. This creates continuity and reinforces the familiarity built through repeated real-world exposure.
Many chains are also beginning to explore AI-assisted programming, enabling playlists to respond to factors such as time of day, customer flow or even weather conditions. This level of dynamic curation means music will become more adaptive over time, offering artists opportunities to appear in highly tailored listening environments.
Digital signage is now playing a growing role too, with certain brands pairing their playlists with short-form video content from featured artists shown on in-store screens. This combination of audio and visual exposure helps strengthen recognition, particularly for emerging artists who benefit from repeated touchpoints within busy retail spaces.
As retail and leisure continue to evolve from seasonal themes and product-led installations to pop-up environments and university sessions, music is likely to become even more coordinated and intentional. The next phase of in-store curation may blend audio, video and environmental data to create fully integrated discovery moments.
For independent artists, these developments point towards a future where in-store playlisting offers not just background exposure, but a meaningful pathway for recognition, familiarity and long-term audience growth beyond traditional digital platforms.
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