- SOUND STRATEGY — CULTURAL PROGRAMMING — BRAND CONSULTING
Music
Shapes
Culture
Music is the only unmeasured element of brand experience. Businesses spend millions on it. Nobody asks if it is actually working.
I am a music strategist based in London, collaborating globally.
Specialising in hospitality, retail and culturally relevant brands — uncovering consumer research, cultural insight and music data through discovery, stakeholder interviews and strategic research to develop the positioning and creative strategy that shapes how a brand sounds.
+ I develop the brief that turns sound from an operational afterthought into a measurable brand asset.
+ I connect the physical brand environment to a measurable digital audience — turning in-space engagement into owned consumer data.
+ I work independently — with no platform to sell and no interest other than whether it is working.
Sound shapes how people feel before they consciously understand where they are.
THE RESEARCH IS READY.
Twenty years of peer-reviewed evidence says the same thing. Music changes behaviour. Dwell time. Transaction value. Trust. Cultural resonance. What has been missing is a commercial methodology to apply it..
THE CATEGORY IS FORMING.
The artist partnership is considered. The brief behind it rarely is. What plays the other 364 days says nothing about the brand. That is not a culture strategy. That is a gap..
THE ENGAGEMENT IS THE DATA
Most brands invest in the physical experience and lose the customer when they leave. Sound is the most underused data source in the room — and the one element that can turn a moment in a space into a measurable commercial relationship.
THE MEASUREMENT IS THE PROOF.
Every track has data behind it. Every customer engagement says whether the music is on-brand. For the first time that answer is a number you can present to the board.
SERVICES & EXPERTISE
DEVELOP & STRATEGY
The brief that has never been written
A Brand Sound Strategy as specific as the visual brand guidelines. Built around commercial objective and cultural intent — genre, tempo, register, daypart logic and artist criteria — owned by the brand, not the provider.
Cultural mapping of where the brand sits sonically. Playlist curation built from that insight rather than algorithm or taste alone. DJ direction and artist sourcing for residencies and activations — working from a written brief, not a vibe.
CURATION, TRENDS & INSIGHTS
Built to brand. Not to algorithm.
Full delivery, licensing and compliance. Ongoing management, daypart scheduling and brand guardianship. Playlist data and consumer insight running continuously — tracking what is landing, what is shifting and what the engagement is returning. Quarterly scoring reports that tell the brand whether it is working.
DELIVER & ACTIVATION
Sound as considered as everything else in the room
SELECTED CLIENTS AND PROJECT EXPERIENCE
Harrods had the visual identity, the spatial design, the product curation. Nobody had asked what the sound was doing or where it was taking the customer after they left the floor. Working directly with Apple to bring Apple Music for Business to market, the question was finally put.
The answer became the brand's first-ever music engagement programme. Customers could hear a track in-store, scan a QR code and instantly access a curated Harrods playlist on Apple Music. Every scan a logged, measurable commercial event. The brand built a retargeting audience from people who chose to engage with the sound — not a paid audience, not an algorithm. People who heard the music and wanted more.
A single bespoke playlist driving a complete customer journey from physical space to digital touchpoint — connecting window displays, editorial campaigns and the in-store experience into one continuous sonic journey. For the first time, sound became part of the brand's marketing rather than simply operational background music. The playlist a customer followed on the way home was the brand narrative continuing without the brand present.
HARRODS × APPLE MUSIC FOR BUSINESS · LONDON
“Like It. Hear It. Take It With You.”
Music Consultant . Curator
Playlist Link Apple Music
Press Link WSJ
LYNK & CO × KOLLEKT · EUROPEAN ROLLOUT
“How to sound more like a progressive cultural brand than just another car company.“
Music Curator
As Lynk & Co entered European cities, the challenge was to establish a brand with a clear cultural identity — progressive, community-led and distinctly un-corporate.
The brief was to make the brand sound like itself before it had established itself in the room. Music became a way to build cultural resonance and signal positioning early — creating an identity people could feel before the brand had fully landed.
GENTING CASINO GROUP X WILLOW · UK ESTATE
“A 24/7 sound that resonates with a discerning demographic with extensive customer dwell time"
Brand Advisor . Music Consultant. Curation
Full music audit and consultancy across the Genting estate. Four distinct sound identities for each venue profiles across fourteen zones - gaming floor, restaurant, bar, lobby, private dining. Each environment given its own brief. Each transition between spaces considered. The work of understanding what a complex multi-format estate needs to sound like and building a framework that holds consistently across all of it.
BURBERRY · GLOBAL (410 Stores)
Instore Music Curation & Regional Licening Strategy
Music Consultant
HERMÈS · ROYAL SALUTE · GLOBAL
Event Sound Direction
Music Consultant · Curator
O2 · UK/IRE (300 Stores)
Brand, Store & Partnership Music Audit & Instore Strategy
Music Consultant · Curator
APEROL · H&M · ALLSAINTS · UK
Live Artist & DJ Direction
Cultural Programmer
KFC · UK (1,050 Restaurants)
Sound of British Hip Hop & Instore Music Strategy
Music Consultant · Curator
FORMULA 1 · POST OFFICE
Music Search & Licensing
Music Supervisor
LETS CONNECT
MATTHEW HAYMAN
MUSIC STRATEGIST · CULTURAL PROGRAMMER · BRAND CONSULTANT
There is a moment when the music is exactly right - when sound stops being background and becomes part of the brand experience.
I have spent twenty years asking what that moment costs when it is missing and building the methodology to answer it commercially.
My career began in live music curating events for Converse, Lynx, Ford and Xbox alongside artists including Rudimental, Stereophonics, DJ Fresh and Hurts. From there, national DJ programmes for All Saints, H&M, Topshop and New Look. Then Music Concierge, PlayNetwork and a direct partnership with Apple Music, designing and implementing music strategies for some of the most considered global brands in luxury hospitality and retail.
Spanning work across multi-brand portfolios for The Estée Lauder Group (Aveda, Jo Malone, Tom Ford, Le Labo), Hilton, Rhubarb Hospitality, D&D London as well as Harrods, Tommy Hilfiger, KFC, Park Hyatt, COMO Hotels, Dishoom, Corinthia Hotels, The Wolseley and Studio City Macau.
Alongside a long-running presence on the London hospitality scene as a resident DJ at The Arts Club Mayfair, The Dorchester, The Savoy, Sky Garden, Groucho Club, Quaglino's, Somerset House and Bluebird Café.
Across global music providers, curation, licensing and brand strategy, I have sat on every side of the conversation: what the providers are selling, what the research actually says, what brands are getting and what they are not. That position — held by almost no one else in this space — is what makes OutSound different.
START THE CONVERSATION
I work directly with brands and alongside the agencies, consultancies and creative studios building their world — as a specialist layer inside your process, not an addition to your client’s budget.
outsound.co · London · 2026