How Rage Brought 650+ Stores Into One Sound

About Rage

Rage has been dressing South Africa since 1996. An established retailer of footwear and apparel across the ladies, men’s, boys’ and girls’ markets, it pairs high-fashion looks with accessible pricing, and has grown from a single store into one of the country’s most recognisable value-fashion brands.

Today Rage operates more than 650 stores nationwide, from Gauteng and Durban through to Polokwane and Cape Town, with the stated aim of making the brand accessible to all South Africans, everywhere. At that scale, in-store music stops being a small detail and becomes a genuine operational challenge.

The problem: cost, control and messaging at scale

Rage’s difficulties all traced back to one root cause, the cost and complexity of licensing music for more than 650 separate locations. On top of that sat two further problems.

• Licensing cost. Every one of 650-plus stores had to be licensed to play music legally. Multiplied across the estate, the fees ran to over $100,000 a year, before the music itself was even paid for.
• No control, and a brand-safety risk. Each store played whatever it wanted. With no single way to manage music across the brand, staff could put on off-brand tracks, and head office had no way to craft a consistent ambience across locations.
• No central messaging. There was no way to roll out ads or announcements across the network, so in-store audio could never be used to promote, inform or sell.

The solution: one platform for every store

Melodial replaced all of it with a single, fully licensed platform. Because Melodial owns or directly licenses every track, the licence is included in the subscription, so Rage’s per-store licensing burden disappeared entirely, taking more than $100,000 in annual fees with it.

Just as importantly, Rage gained control. Head office now curates on-brand music and pushes it to every store from one dashboard, with staff-level permissions that keep the floor on-brand and brand-safe. Zones and scheduling let the team design a deliberate ambience, and centralised messaging means ads and announcements can finally reach customers across the whole network at once.

“We really like Melodial's musical options, and the interface is extremely easy for both our store staff and our admin team to use.”

The results

The switch paid for itself on cost alone, but the brand impact went further. Rage measured customer sentiment before and after rolling Melodial out across its stores.

“We measured before and after rolling Melodial out to all of our stores, and saw a 2.5% increase in turnover, along with a 16% increase in brand awareness, measured by NPS.”

• Over $100,000 saved each year in music licensing across the estate.
• A 2.5% increase in turnover after the rollout.
• A 16% lift in brand awareness, measured by NPS.
• A consistent, brand-safe sound in all 650-plus stores, managed centrally.
• Network-wide messaging, so in-store audio can now promote and inform.

The verdict

“It's honestly a no-brainer. The cost savings alone would have been reason enough for us to switch to Melodial, and the extra features are simply a bonus.”