Making a Segmentation Sing

The Challenge

Helping a major music/media brand make their segment sing.

Pandora came to us, wanting to do a really smart, modern-day segmentation… not just a numerical prioritization of who they should go after, but a living, breathing, inspiring piece of work for everyone in the company to rally around.

The Approach

We’re firm believers in what we call the “qual sandwich” when it comes to segmentation best practices — starting off with qualitative exploration, in order to identify attitudinal vectors to be tested, leading into a quantitative study to define the key identifiers, attitudes and behaviors of distinct segments, and finishing it off by illuminating each of the priority segments. To illuminate Pandora’s segments, we did online mobile ethnographies with music lovers, followed by in-home listen-alongs, designed to truly get at who they are as music lovers, not just music listeners. We sent our film team along, which led to inspiring films that truly brought the unique aspects of each segment to life allowing all team members at Pandora to truly feel a day in the lives of these segments.

The Impact

We gave Pandora a very smart, very human segmentation that seamlessly blended both qualitative and quantitative insight, allowing for an inspiring look at their different music-loving segments … with numbers to back it up. We took a deep look into the role of music in people’s lives, getting past surface-level behaviors to understand the whys and the hows, leading to widespread adoption and usage within Pandora, and helping them connect with music lovers in a much more targeted way.