Making Market Segmentation Research Sing

The Challenge

Pandora came to us, wanting to do really smart, modern-day market segmentation research… 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 market segmentation research 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 and 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.

The Impact

We gave Pandora a very smart, very human segmentation that seamlessly blended both qualitative and 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 and 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.