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Music in banks

Chimp, you still go INTO a bank? Quaint.

I can't remember how many years it has been since I was inside a bank building. Usually it is the ATM or drive-thru. I'm not even sure they still have tellers.
 
I don't even know how ATMs work.

To recap what I have said in the past, I have money in the bank thas a branch nearest my house. However, I haven't gone to that branch but one time in as many years as I can remember because it's usually closed as I am passing by. The bank bought a branch that had to close when the bank that in my area became Wells Fargo had to sell a branch to complete a major merger. At that branch, I remember hearing an oldies station which was relatively soft, than that station changed format and they switched to an AC which was still reasonably soft. Eventually, that AC became almost Hot AC and its competition began to play everything. Next time I went in that branch, they were programming their own oldies. That branch has closed and I'm not sure why, but on my favorite station, their commercials only mentioned the one location, even after I told them they weren't advertising their second branch.

I opened the Wells Fargo account in case I needed to go to a bank when I was in that neighborhood and several others where I can't go to my usual bank.

But there are other branches of my usual bank. The last time I was in one, "Here I Go Again" by Whitesnake was playing. Hardly a professional image.

I had also visited another area bank trying to get some historical information for Wikipedia. I heard a station ID for The Blend from Sirius XM. Pretty much everything that I heard there was out of character for a professional workplace, though not extreme like "Blurred Lines" where you have content issues as well as a high volume level.
 
landtuna said:
Chimp, you still go INTO a bank? Quaint.

I can't remember how many years it has been since I was inside a bank building. Usually it is the ATM or drive-thru. I'm not even sure they still have tellers.
Click to expand...

It's funny how we are not conscious of how our habits have changed.

When I was doing a transfer to escrow three months ago... a process that required going into a bank... I realized that I had not been in a bank in perhaps three or four years.

I get all income from ACH transfers ("direct deposit") and maybe write one or two checks a month, and deposit and get cash from an ATM. Safer, better paper trail, more convenient.
 
DavidEduardo said:


It's funny how we are not conscious of how our habits have changed.

When I was doing a transfer to escrow three months ago... a process that required going into a bank... I realized that I had not been in a bank in perhaps three or four years.

I get all income from ACH transfers ("direct deposit") and maybe write one or two checks a month, and deposit and get cash from an ATM. Safer, better paper trail, more convenient.
Click to expand...

Plenty of scary stories out there, though, about bad guys attaching "skimmers" to ATMs and feeding the card info to counterfeit card mills in Russia, Romania, etc. I still use them, though.

As for music in banks, I don't hear any music at all in the Bank of America branches I use in my local area.
 
vchimpanzee said:
I don't even know how ATMs work.

To recap what I have said in the past, I have money in the bank thas a branch nearest my house. However, I haven't gone to that branch but one time in as many years as I can remember because it's usually closed as I am passing by. The bank bought a branch that had to close when the bank that in my area became Wells Fargo had to sell a branch to complete a major merger. At that branch, I remember hearing an oldies station which was relatively soft, than that station changed format and they switched to an AC which was still reasonably soft. Eventually, that AC became almost Hot AC and its competition began to play everything. Next time I went in that branch, they were programming their own oldies. That branch has closed and I'm not sure why, but on my favorite station, their commercials only mentioned the one location, even after I told them they weren't advertising their second branch.

I opened the Wells Fargo account in case I needed to go to a bank when I was in that neighborhood and several others where I can't go to my usual bank.

But there are other branches of my usual bank. The last time I was in one, "Here I Go Again" by Whitesnake was playing. Hardly a professional image.

I had also visited another area bank trying to get some historical information for Wikipedia. I heard a station ID for The Blend from Sirius XM. Pretty much everything that I heard there was out of character for a professional workplace, though not extreme like "Blurred Lines" where you have content issues as well as a high volume level.
Click to expand...

Once again, I come out of reading one of your posts, feeling as if I had just emerged from the Twilight Zone. ATMs were invented at about the same time you were born. For you to not have ever used one is roughly the equivalent of me never brushing my teeth with Crest toothpaste or ever hearing a rock n roll song! Again, I'm not complaining. It's just an observation.
 
CTListener said:
Plenty of scary stories out there, though, about bad guys attaching "skimmers" to ATMs and feeding the card info to counterfeit card mills in Russia, Romania, etc. I still use them, though.
Click to expand...

I either use the ATMs at a branch of my bank, or use ATMs inside my preferred supermarket. I never use the "convenience" machines at gas stations or 7-11 type locations, which is the kind of location that all the reports of fraud have indicated to have been used.
 
semoochie said:
Once again, I come out of reading one of your posts, feeling as if I had just emerged from the Twilight Zone.
Click to expand...

Or Mayberry.

ATMs were invented at about the same time you were born. For you to not have ever used one is roughly the equivalent of me never brushing my teeth with Crest toothpaste or ever hearing a rock n roll song! Again, I'm not complaining. It's just an observation.
Click to expand...

I had a morning guy on an LA station who would frequently ask me to walk across the street to the convenience store with him so I could get money out of his bank via the ATM installed there. He said it confused him.
 
I bank at a credit union, and have since the late 1990s. One reason is that credit unions have a co-operative ATM network so that any credit union -- even in a different state -- will dispense cash fee-free and allow deposits back to your own credit union's account. I live within two miles of four different credit union ATMs, one of which is only a five-minute walk from my home.

I only physically visit my branch on those occasions when I need a physical cashier check for something. (It happens occasionally.) I don't remember when the last time was, although I could go back over old statements to find out.

Bill paying is either online or via an electronic debit card transaction. Most of my income is either direct deposit (I get a fixed amount every month from my late mother's trust fund) or ACH transfers from PayPal (which pretty much all of my consulting clients seem to prefer for paying me). The credit union website is easily navigable and I even get my statements from there as PDFs.

I'm fairly sure there was no music playing in the branch the last time I was there. I would have noticed. (See, stayed on-topic.)
 
Amazing - a very talented musician writing music for banks "not to be noticed". I guess it beats modern pop which is noise "to be noticed". :rolleyes:
 
landtuna said:
I guess it beats modern pop which is noise "to be noticed".
Click to expand...

Did you get that definition out of vchimp's personal dictionary? It certainly fits the context of his posts.

Look, no amount of ranting about modern pop being "noise" is going to change what gets played on A/C radio, or in banks, or in the supermarket, etc. From a philosophical view, I agree with you; I have been gradually disliking current pop music in greater degrees from about 1992 onwards. But change is inevitable and programmers have to stay in-demographic. That's their job.

Radio programmers, as has been pointed out in responses to many threads started by vchimp, pretty much are mandated by station owners to program to a saleable demographic. For A/C radio, that's 25- to 54-year-olds. Any listener older than that simply cannot be factored in, because none of the advertising sales targets over-55's. (Don't blame me, blame the ad agencies, who got this idea in their head a long time ago and refuse to shake it loose.)

Banks, supermarkets, and the like also covet -- and market to -- younger customers, hoping to build loyalty to their brand early on so that they will remain customers for decades. Let's face it: The number of customers who switch banks or shop at a different supermarket chain because of the in-store music is less than 1%. It's probably less than .01%, when you get right down to it.

For radio (the subject I know the most about), programming to 25-54 means your key target listener is the exact center, or 39 years old.* That person is old enough for the music mix to remain aurally attractive for the 24 years it takes them to age out of the demo; about half the music is songs they grew up with, about half songs they probably heard since. And since music tends to gradually shift its dominant focus in sound "type" the odds are that music programmed for someone who is 39 will be palatable to someone who is 59, and not objectionable to someone who is 25.

So the bank doesn't care if "Blurred Lines" or "Here I Go Again" is playing in the branches as long as they keep seeing younger people signing up for accounts or taking out loans. And then the same philosophy as radio programming comes into play.

(* - One is not allowed to count Jack Benny as having been "39" his entire life. If you don't know who that is, you might be making my point for me in admitting it.)
 
K.M. Richards said:
Did you get that definition out of vchimp's personal dictionary? It certainly fits the context of his posts.
Click to expand...

Chimp's musical tastes seem to be much narrower than my own although I pretty much don't listen to pop or rock made after 1984. That wasn't my point however. My point was simply that a very talented musician was creating music whose sole intent was to fade into the background - Muzak if you will. And I saw this as somewhat strange compared to modern pop which is, for the most part, just noise created by semi-talented individuals (and please notice I did not use the term 'musician' intentionally).

My local Home Depot plays a Classic Hits radio station and since the majority of its customers are in the 50-ish range I think that is appropriate however, I don't go there to listen to the music. Neither is my choice of banks dictated all or in part by their choice of background music. Music does not attract me but it can repel me in places like restaurants - especially if it is loud enough to prevent conversation. Chimp seems to be affected by these things and I am not.

I was not trying to comment on the playlists of radio stations as I realize I am well outside their target demos. For the most part I have given up on radio and listen only to the "70's" HD-2 station in my market when in the car.
 
frankberry said:
vchimpanzee,

Please put something more into your posts than a simple link.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
The problem is if I go to some of these sites I run the risk of eventually running out of free articles. And unless I remember to go to the site somewhere other that home, I have really slow Internet and, since it won't be a site like this one where I went though the waiting for the first time I accessed it, I'm having to do a lot of waiting.

But I'll try.
 
vchimpanzee said:
The problem is if I go to some of these sites I run the risk of eventually running out of free articles. And unless I remember to go to the site somewhere other that home, I have really slow Internet and, since it won't be a site like this one where I went though the waiting for the first time I accessed it, I'm having to do a lot of waiting.

But I'll try.
Click to expand...

How's this? Here's an article from the Charlotte Observer about a man who produces music for Wells Fargo. http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/banking/article29983674.html
 
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K.M. Richards said:
I hope you get a laugh out of the fact that the article you linked to was the landing point of the Google link that Frank questioned as being a post in and of itself ...
Click to expand...

It was intended as an example of posting something other than just a link. I used the same link he did to show what it would look like.
 
Most people quote the article, and I was explaining why I tried to avoid that. My intention was to say, "Here's the article I mentioned" and I just forgot.
 
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