Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

That’s because I then briefed them on the iPad trial and the music selection component. Eyes perked up. “For that,” I was told, “we’d definitely go into the store.” Why? “Well, we’re in the mall anyway, and if we like the songs—and especially if we can make everyone else listen to our favorite songs—why not?”

As I saw my dreams of raising a logical consumer advocate melting away, my daughter added the killer line: “And as long as we’re in there, while waiting for our stuff to play, I’d probably buy something.” Her friends nodded in agreement. There you have it. In the space of barely two minutes, they went from agreeing that they didn’t find the clothes being sold at Aéropostale of any interest to saying that they would probably buy some anyway. And it merely took the suggestion of music control to flip them.

The music for this trial comes from Mood Media—which you might remember from its creative Macy’s and ShopKick project—and therein lies some more interesting possibilities. One of Mood’s abilities is serious isolation, enabling a retailer to play different tunes in different parts of the store. But how to make the choices? That’s where the data comes into play.

One of the least interesting parts of the trial is the ability to play a specific song in the dressing room a shopper is in, “to have your own music party in your dressing room” as Usablenet’s Taylor said. That misses the point in two ways. First, as a practical matter, any shopper can already do that by simply using their iPod or any other mobile device. More importantly, though, the attraction to the jukebox concept is a time-honored teen tradition: making others focus on you, listen to what you want them to hear, watch what you want them to watch. It gives teens the ever-so-attractive illusion of control.

In a major way, that is truly at the heart of teen apparel choices, and that’s why this trial resonates so well. It’s all about choosing a style not for yourself, necessarily (that’s a self-confident approach that is a teen rarity), but to show everyone else how you want them to perceive you.

Here’s the potential value in the Mood/Aero combo. Mood’s people track national and regional music trends, so they know when to take songs out of the rotation for a demographic and when to add new ones in. But the retailer, powered by mobile trials like these, can drill down far deeper into its own customers and prospects and make song-to-apparel type-to-action (buy) associations. And that’s music to the ears of any retailer.