MATTHEW HAYMAN
Creative Strategy Director · Music & Culture
Music
Shapes
Culture
Music is the one part of the brand experience that most brands leave to chance.
I help hospitality, retail and culture-led brands turn sound from an operational afterthought into a brand asset: grounded in cultural insight, written into a strategy your brand own, and tracked so you can see it working.
Sound shapes how people feel before they consciously understand where they are.
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 RESEARCH IS READY.
Four decades of research, from Milliman’s 1982 supermarket study onwards, says the same thing: music changes behaviour. How long people stay. What they spend. How they feel about where they are.
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 carries an emotional message. Every customer engagement tells you whether it’s the right one.
How I work
LISTEN
A sound audit of your spaces, audience and competitors, plus cultural research into the scenes your brand can credibly join.
A written sound strategy your teams own: genre, tempo, register, daypart logic and artist criteria.
DEFINE
Curation, artist and DJ partnerships, licensing and rollout across every location.
ACTIVATE
Tracking engagement in the space and online, and refining the sound as you go.
LEARN
SELECTED CLIENTS AND PROJECT EXPERIENCE: Work led in previous roles and freelance projects.
The tension. Harrods has been a London institution since 1849: the Food Halls, the Egyptian Escalator, the Royal Warrants. On any afternoon the floor holds Knightsbridge regulars and visitors from every corner of the world. Lean too hard on heritage and the store becomes a museum. Chase what's trending and it stops sounding like Harrods.
The insight. The brief was already written, in Latin: Omnia Omnibus Ubique, all things, for all people, everywhere. To me that said heritage isn't something to keep behind glass. It's a promise to make real for whoever walks in.
The idea. I started with the brand guidelines and shopper demographics, not a playlist. The brand set the tone: assured, warm, quietly theatrical. Each department was then tuned to the people who actually walk through it. British craft and elegance form the foundation; a new generation of British artists gives it a contemporary pulse, so the store sounds as current as what's on its shelves. Then we made the sound something you could take home. Apple Music for Business QR codes linked the floor to a Harrods playlist, every scan logged, building an audience the brand owns.
What it unlocked. The first music engagement programme in Harrods' history, launched alongside Apple Music for Business and featured in The Wall Street Journal. Music stopped being background and became a channel for the brand.
HARRODS × APPLE MUSIC FOR BUSINESS · PLAYNETWORK
“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 Curation
The tension. Lynk & Co's Clubs host food events, yoga classes, talks and cocktail classes. You might walk into a room of people on laptops before you see a car, and every city's Club looks different. As CEO Alain Visser puts it, Polestar has “a very thin book on what liberties you can take with the brand. We have a very thin book on what is not possible.” So how do you give a brand with almost no rules a sound you'd recognise anywhere?
The insight. You don't write it a rulebook. You find the feeling. At the start, I asked Alain one question: is there a single song that fits the brand perfectly? He found it hard to answer, then landed on Nicolas Jaar's “Mi Mujer”, a track that's hard to categorise and carries many different feelings and influences. That was the brief: not a genre, a feeling.
The idea. A sound that's eclectic on purpose: feel-good, but never mainstream. Each Club's soundtrack is tuned to its city and moves with the day, from laptops to yoga to evening events, but always passes the brand's one test: does it fit a sustainable, fun identity? The music isn't played over the space. It's part of the interior.
What it unlocked. A CEO who talks about the sound as part of the brand itself: “Our sound is far more than just background music, it's part of the club interior, almost in a tangible way. Without music, a space is dead. Together with our curator Matthew, we have found the perfect eclectic balance.” — Alain Visser, CEO, Lynk & Co
GENTING CASINOS UK · WILLOW · UK ESTATE
“How to make a brand that never closes feel right at every hour”
Brand Advisor · Music Consultant · Curator
The tension. At 7pm it's dinner. At 9pm it's match night in the sports bar. At 3am it's a quiet lounge and a late cocktail. Genting's UK venues never close, and one soundtrack was trying to serve every moment.
The insight. The easy answer was to find the right playlist. But guests don't stay in one mood; they move through several in a night. I wanted to design for the shift, not the moment, and for the sound to know when to step back.
The idea. A full audit of how each space was really used, then a framework built on four moods mapped to the hour: welcoming in the restaurants, social in the bars, calm in the lounges, discreet in the premium spaces. From that came 17 sound concepts and 34 playlists, rolled out across 31 venues and built so managers can run them, so every site sounds intentional at any hour without anyone touching a playlist. It’s the same thinking I’ve brought to hotel groups including Hilton, Marriott and Corinthia: the lobby at 8am and the bar at midnight are different rooms.
What it unlocked. A whole estate that sounds like one brand, around the clock. Hospitality guests feel before they notice it.
BURBERRY · GLOBAL (422 Stores)
Music Curation & Licensing Strategy
Music Consultant · Curator
HERMÈS · ROYAL SALUTE · GLOBAL
Event Sound Direction
Music Consultant · Curator
O2 · UK/IRE (300 Stores)
Brand & Partnership Music Audit · In-store 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 & In-store Music Strategy
Music Consultant · Curator
FORMULA 1 · POST OFFICE
Music Search & Licensing
Music Supervisor
About
There is a moment when the music is exactly right, when sound stops being background and becomes part of the brand experience. I've spent fifteen years asking what that moment is worth, and what it costs when it's missing.
I started in live music, curating brand events for Converse, Lynx, Ford and Xbox with artists including Rudimental, Stereophonics, DJ Fresh and Hurts, then national DJ programmes for AllSaints, H&M, Topshop and New Look. From there came Music Concierge, PlayNetwork and a direct partnership with Apple Music, shaping music strategy for some of the most considered names in luxury hospitality and retail.
That work spans Estée Lauder Companies (Aveda, Jo Malone London, Tom Ford, Le Labo), Hilton, Marriott, Park Hyatt, Corinthia, Rhubarb Hospitality, D&D London, The Wolseley, Harrods, Tommy Hilfiger and KFC. Later, I led music supervision for advertising and broadcast at Warner Chappell, and worked on the licensing side at PRS for Music.
Through it all I've stayed close to the room itself, as a resident DJ at The Arts Club, The Dorchester, The Savoy, Sky Garden, the Groucho Club, Quaglino's, Somerset House and Bluebird.
I've sat on every side of the conversation: what providers sell, what the research says, what brands get, and what they're missing. Very few people hold all of those views at once. OutSound is built on that.
MATTHEW HAYMAN
Creative Strategy Director · Music & Culture
START THE CONVERSATION
I work directly with brands, or alongside your agencies as a specialist partner.
outsound.co · London · 2026