Chapter 67. Designing with Music (2)

Translator: Synopsis

After returning to his office, KangYoon gathered the materials he had collected from DRO mart. Then, he organized them one by one to think about the elements that were needed to select a song. Since he couldn’t use his eyes, he put more mind into the objective information more than usual.

‘Selling shoes from many brands in one store. It can be considered as a department store of shoes. Its location is in one of the most popular places in Gangnam street. However, there are two more shoe stores right next to it. There are many people that go by due to the floating population, but the period of time they stay for is very little. As for eye shopping….’

Although this time, it was a store, the market analysis was similar to when planning for a singer. The difference in work field was large, but there were definitely some similarities as well. Thanks to that, KangYoon could proceed with his work quite smoothly.

However, there was a surprise. It was the general preferences of the people that came to look for shoes.

‘Many different people visit DRO mart. It’s hard to look for their shared preferences. The age is very spread out, and the ratio of genders is relatively equal, while I don’t know their general income. To compare it to a real department store, the store is too small. How can I choose the songs?’

He was worried in many ways. It was extremely easy if he just selected songs at random, but it was extremely difficult to do it properly. Since the song selection was the icing on the cake for the shoes retail store, it may lead to increase in sales, so it was even more pressure.

However, KangYoon kept analyzing DRO mart and looked for their strengths and weaknesses. Since he had experience in analyzing singers, it was quite doable if he excluded the technical terms that came up here and there.

Having worked for a while, KangYoon headed to the rest area to cool his head off a little.

“Huh? Oppa.”

There was someone else there already. It was Kim JinGyung from TheACE.

“JinGyung.”

“It’s been a while. How have you been?”

Kim JinGyung seemed to be delighted to see KangYoon as her expression brightened. After they worked with KangYoon, they were doing well in whatever they did, so it was no wonder. The two sat down after a light greeting.

“It’s hard to see you at the company.”

“That’s true. You should come over to play sometime.”

“Don’t have the time. I always think about going, but when all schedule is over, it’s past midnight.”

Kim JinGyung looked happy as she talked about her busy life. She said that her life had been completely flipped over and boasted about what happened at some TV stations. KangYoon was also happy to see that she was doing well. He also talked about what he was doing nowadays. Kim JinGyung found the unfamiliar music coordination quite curious.

“Wow. Song selection affects sales? That’s interesting.”

“Right? The song sets the mood after all. I think of it as the same as a stage.”

“Aah, that’s true. Well, I heard that the song played in department stores are different at night than at day. I also don’t ever get tired when I shop at a department store.”

“Really? I feel my energy draining whenever I see a department store.”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“That’s because you’re weak.”

“What was that?”

When KangYoon was about to get angry at her retort, Kim JinGyung burst out laughing. KangYoon also accepted her words before switching to another topic.

“I thought about choosing songs similar to a department store, but I decided against it since it’s smaller than a department store. A department store has a resting zone, but the store I’ve looked at doesn’t have such a thing. Ah… it’s so hard.”

“It must be hard to think about many things. From what I heard just now, it’s not just choosing random songs. Well, if I think about it like that, then I guess you would have chosen a random song for us as well. We would have been doomed if it was like that.”

“Lol, I guess that’s true.”

Kim JinGyung bought KangYoon some chocolate to relieve some stress before she left. KangYoon also headed to the roof after seeing her out. He felt like he had to smoke some before working again.

He lighted his smoke on the rooftop. He felt like he relaxed a little after scattering some smoke.

‘Fuu. JinGyung found her place as well.’

He could still see Kim JinGyung’s face lingering in front of him. Her expression was very bright. The worried expression from before had completely disappeared without a trace. He got a little excited thinking about how he, KangYoon, was the one to make TheACE succeed like that.

‘When I think about it, TheACE also went with a completely different theme from the existing ones. Wait.’

However, a thought flashed through KangYoon’s head. TheACE went on the offensive with jazz, something that was not done in the past. To express it, it was a new type of weapon. If he could select a song that could be exclusively heard in that store alone….

‘Yes, that’s it!”

KangYoon put off his smoke and immediately went to his office.

***

The biggest issue in the first directors meeting in 2009 was Eddios.

As KangYoon went to work beyond the existing concert team and into the general music team, they judged that it would be difficult for him to work with Eddios simultaneously, so the hot topic in the directors meeting was about who would take charge of Eddios after him.

“Isn’t Director Kang busy with raising the rookies right now? The work with Eddios must be immense. I don’t think it will be easy for you to do it at the same time.”

“Doesn’t Director Yoon have no experience in taking charge of a girl idol group?”

The directors were all on the offensive. In their view, Eddios was a golden egg-laying duck. They considered that Eddios would become the greatest cash cow since the rise of TheACE. Everyone wanted to increase their voice in the company by showing achievements from Eddios.

There was no way Chairman Won JinMoon didn’t know their intentions.

‘Sheesh, your greed….’

Chairman Won JinMoon shook his head. This was also why he couldn’t let them take care of JooAh or Min JinSeo. A basic amount of desire was fine, but once it turned into greed, it would be no good. But that didn’t mean that President Lee HyunJi was good either. She had to take care of the general music team along with KangYoon. However, the directors’ gazes would pressure him if he took Eddios for himself as well. Even though he was the top of the food chain here, he had to consider the general opinion.

At that time, someone entered his eyes. It was director Lee HanSeo who hadn’t shown up in directors meetings in a long time.

“Director Lee. Isn’t TheACE preparing their album nowadays?”

“Yes. We’re preparing a proper mini album this time.”

“You participated despite being busy. How is it? Don’t you want to take Eddios as well?”

All the directors shot gazes to Director Lee HanSeo when Chairman Won JinMoon said that.

“They are the product of Team leader Lee KangYoon’s hard work. It’s too much pressure for me. I wish to decline.”

The other directors signed in relief when Director Lee HanSeo said that. He wasn’t a greedy person and didn’t have much presence either. Everyone knew that he wasn’t just being polite. However, Chairman Won JinMoon gave him the hot potato.

“Good. You’ll take them.”

“What?”

The other directors’ gazes all turned.

“You know Team leader Lee’s burden. You should be able to maintain them well without doing irrational things.”

“But Chairman, Director Lee is currently in charge of TheACE. If you let him work with Eddios as well, then….”

Along with Chairman Won JinMoon’s words, the other directors all started objecting, but they were all put down. Director Lee HanSeo eventually accepted the Chairman’s offer since his will was firm. He was quite relaxed in the company without interfering much of the work, but he had to dive into work now that he had to take care of Eddios on top of TheACE.

‘….Out of all things, it’s work.’

Being glared at by the other directors, he only sighed thinking that his tea time will decrease.

***

Selecting music for the store.

The team members of the general music team experienced a lot of trial and error since this was their first time. They showed great know-how in analyzing the preferences of the masses and finding trends, but with the ‘product sales’ variable in the mix, it wasn’t so easy.

KangYoon first started by getting the current song selection at DRO mart. When he analyzed the song selection, he discovered that the sales differed according to which song was played at which times. After that, KangYoon first test-picked a few songs that might help the current trend and sales using that data. Then, he had meetings with the team members before selecting songs again. This process was repeated.

Like that, the days passed and it came the day where they had to report to Owner Gu YoungSoo. KangYoon headed to DRO mart in Gangnam with President Lee HyunJi. It was just after lunchtime, and about the time when many people had coffee. KangYoon and President Lee HyunJi headed to a nearby café with Owner Gu YoungSoo.

“Oho.”

Owner Gu Young exclaimed in a small voice after seeing the papers given to him by KangYoon. It was definitely different from when he randomly selected songs from a music streaming site before.

“There are recent songs and songs that are a year old…. Hey, isn’t this a little too old?”

Even a song from three years ago was on the list. Owner Gu YoungSoo was worried that it was too behind the latest trend, but KangYoon answered his worries.

“Although it’s a little old, I judged that there was no better song than this to switch the mood. The song list here was targeted towards workers who come at the evening peak time. I tried to make it as comfortable as possible for them while looking around the products.”

“Comfort…. If that’s the case, a slower song might be better, though….”

There were dance songs and songs that had easy rhythms. However, there were strangely no slow songs like a ballad, so Owner Gu YoungSoo expressed his doubts. KangYoon replied while showing him a graph.

“If you look at here, the number of customers is the highest at evening rush hour. However, the majority of these customers leave within 3 minutes. I have analyzed the songs that were played at this time. The first day, it was ‘Spring Shower’, second day, it was ‘Spreading of dawn’, the third day was ‘ring’, and the fourth day was ‘Yes, it’s here’. The first two days had slower songs while the third and fourth days had faster tempo songs.

“Do you mean that customers leave earlier when there’s a slower song? I think there must be other variables though. This….”

On KangYoon’s graph, the sales and the number of customers decreased when a slow-tempo song was being played. Although it was hard to see, it was quite considerable. Owner Gu YoungSoo never seemed to have imagined that he would see data like this, and could not hide his surprise. He didn’t know music could have such power.

KangYoon added to his explanation.

“This value here is largely simplified. I have considered all the other variables, such as customer service, and other elements to be equal across all days. Please excuse us for only being able to speak in a musical vantage.”

“That’s true.”

“This time, we’re trying to reinforce this list and try it out for 3 days. If you would also like additional service, we are planning to rearrange some of the songs that will be played in the store.”

“Rearrange? What’s that?”

“It’s the editing of music to be more comfortable to the ears. Of course, we’ll do the negotiations with the original composer. It will be the same song, but it will be an exclusive version of the song for this store.”

“Oho.”

To put it simply, it was a specialized service. When it switched to about money, Owner Gu YoungSoo turned around to President Lee HyunJi.

“HyunJi. How much does it cost?”

“You’re the first customer, oppa, so we are willing to discount 30%.”

“Oho, that sounds good. I’ll do it right away. Day, evening peak, and weekend peak time for a total of 3 songs.”

Owner Gu YoungSoo didn’t think about it anymore and immediately signed the contract.

After that, KangYoon and President Lee HyunJi talked about any additional things before leaving the café. Since Owner Gu YoungSoo said that there was no problem with the test trial of the songs list, they could move up their schedule a lot as well. KangYoon decided that they would start the trial from the next day before they scattered.

The next day.

Owner Gu YoungSoo played the music that MG Entertainment had sent them.

“Owner? This music. It has a good quality.”

One male employee was pleasantly surprised after hearing the good quality music than the usual streaming service music.

“This was expensive you know? This much is natural.”

“Is this some lossless music? Man, that audio quality is good.”

The male employee, who always found it unfortunate that the expensive speakers weren’t used to their full potential, talked about how the speakers finally found their right place. Hearing that, Owner Gu YoungSoo felt satisfied at MG Entertainment’s service.

‘It does its money’s worth.’

He felt satisfied feeling that they put care into every single detail.

The store opened and the songs played. It started with the latest trending music, but the mood was heightened with the older songs. If it was the fun and exciting music that mainly composed the music before, there were much relaxing but still enjoyable music right now.

“Hey, this music is good. What is it?”

“This is from a few years ago. What was it again? I can’t remember. I used to love this song.”

Even the customers who just stopped by for a moment reacted to the song. There were many eye shoppers, but the period of time they stayed was definitely different than before.

On the first day, Owner Gu YoungSoo was definitely satisfied with the changed music.

On the second day and third day, their period of stay was even longer. The proof was that the customers per employee had increased. Also, the number of customers who went to purchase had increased as well.

‘Whew…. All this happened because of a simple change in background music?’

Owner Gu YoungSoo was surprised even after seeing the results. However, it was too early to rejoice. It had only been three days.

On the fourth day, he could feel that the mood of the store had definitely changed. The actions of the employees were changing now.

“Welcome to DRO. How may I help you?”

“I came to look at some high-heels.”

“This way please….”

Owner Gu YoungSoo felt that the employees had become nicer as well. Even the employee who was mostly expressionless before was now taking care of a customer with a smile. Not only that, the so-called ‘nasty customers’ had decreased in number as well for the past few days.

“Should we leave?”

“No, let’s stay a little more.”

Listening to the conversation between two lady customers who had been here for more than one hour, Owner Gu YoungSoo could definitely see the change. This had become the norm over the past few days. It seemed like people had called for more people, and the number of customers kept increasing.

After the fourth day, it became the fifth, the last day of the trial.

Just as Owner Gu YoungSoo was about to play the music after registering the employees, his phone started vibrating. It was a call from KangYoon. When he asked what was up, he heard that KangYoon would come to the store.

“Are you coming in the evening?”

– Yes. I need to see the results. Also, I’ll bring you the songs we talked about last time.”

“Oh, the song exclusive to the store? Are you talking about that?”

– Yes. You should be satisfied. Then I’ll see you in the evening.

Owner Gu YoungSoo waited for the evening expectantly.

After lunchtime at around 4:30, KangYoon arrived at DRO mart. KangYoon immediately handed him a USB and looked around the store.

“There are a lot of people.”

“The effects of the change in music is definitely showing. The period of time they are staying has definitely increased.”

“That’s very fortunate. By next week, we’ll finish the rearrangement and give you the completed list.”

Owner Gu YoungSoo was satisfied with the increase in customers and the better mood in the store. KangYoon was also surprised to see the change within the past week. Before, the store had fewer customers than the other rivals and there were many that left quickly, but right now, he had a hard time finding any of that.

When he was looking around the store, the clock tilted towards 6. The people in the store started increasing. It was peak time.

“Should we start?”

It became time. KangYoon played the store-exclusive song that was in the USB.