Making a Segmentation 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.

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 interesting attitudinal vectors to be tested, leading into a quantitative study to define the key identifiers, attitudes & behaviors of distinct audience segments … and then finishing it off by truly 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 in their everyday lives … not just music listeners.

We sent our top-rate film team along on all the interviews, which led to unique, inspiring films that truly brought the unique aspects of each of the segments to life … allowing all the team members at Pandora to truly feel a day in the lives of these humans.

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