SPOTIFY CONNECT

Design Research, Business Development, UI/UX Design, Strategy Design
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Initial Brief

Spotify Connect is a project I picked up as part of my postgrad learning in early 2020. It focused on finding expansion strategies for Spotify in the Indian market at the time it was dominated by local music streaming services through the lens of the design thinking toolkit.

My approach combined design research methodology with a business development perspective.

Design Research

Followed Methodology

1

Formulating the objective

Analysing the competitors

2

3

Analysing brand positioning and philosophies

Analysing business challenges

4

5

Understanding user perspectives and habits

Deriving insights and framing design objectives

6

7

Ideating to find solutions

Prototyping the best solution

8

Formulating the objective

Impact Effort Grid

Lack of profitability

Issues with scaling

Disputes with artists

Problems reaching foreign markets

Lack of paying customers

Untested reliance on podcasts

Absence of local content

Competition with local streaming

Low brand awareness among rural youth

Competition with deep-pocketed rivals

Stakeholder Mapping

Competing music streaming services

Record Labels

Spotify

Advertisers

Artists

Shortlisted Problem 1 : The market is heavily saturated with services like YouTube Music, Gaana, JioSaavn, etc

Record Labels

Spotify

Advertisers

Artists

Shortlisted Problem 2 : High licensing fees of major record labels

Competing music streaming services

Record Labels

Spotify

Advertisers

Artists

Customers per geography

Government

Shortlisted Problem 3 :Finding a right geographical expansion strategy

Framed Problem

Finding a right strategy for Spotify so that the brand can compete with local Indian music streaming services operating in the current Indian market.

Competitor's Analysis

Direct Competitors

Gaana

JioSaavn

Apple Music

YouTube Music

Different Product Category

Radio

Music channels on TV

Pirated music vendors

CDs/ Records/ DVDs

Different Problem

Netflix

YouTube

Amazon Prime

Different Customer

iTunes

Google Play Music

Amazon Prime Music

Supplier Power

Lots of artists, but few record labels
Not a lot of alternatives to paying record labels
They offer the same service to other products in the market

Buyer Power

Buyers have a lot of options
Low product differentiation withing industry
Easy to post reviews about the product

Competitive Rivalry

Competitors have cheap pricing
Competitors have been operating for longer
Competitors have larger market shares
Fixed costs are high
Low cusomer loyalty

Threat of new entry

Difficult to achieve economies of scale, high production cost for new entrants
High capital requirements
Market is already saturated
Acess to distribution network is easy

Threat of substitution

Few substitutes available from low profit industries
Low quality of substitutes
Cheaper substitutes available

Contextual Research Plan

Research Question

What differentiates spotify as a platform that makes spotify users loyal to the app?

Research Objectives

Difference in Spotify US/UK and Spotify India
Unique Spotify features that make it special
Disliked aspects of competitor apps
Inclination to get the premium service over the freemium model
Outlook on Spotify marketing campaigns in India
Reason behind their switch to Spotify

Variables to be studied

Timeline of usage of the app
Distinguishing features
Demographic / Psychographic of the users
Perception about the monetary value of the app

Population to be studied

Loyal Spotify users
Newly joined users

Primary Research Insights

“I don’t mind the ads”

“I don’t notice the lower bitrate of the free service”

“The free version is almost as good”

“I’m too lazy to pay and keep track of payments”

“If there are more ads, I’ll move onto another service”

“I restart the app and the ad goes away”

Young adults need additional incentives to be convinced to pay for a service

“I didn’t get the pages I followed on my screen like Instagram”

“Don’t your playlists disappear if you get premium”

“I used the app for 3 days but it didn’t give good suggestions”

“I thought the radios are live streams”

“Songs disappear if you don’t listen to them in a while”

“I get 4 daily mix playlists but my friend gets 6”

New and technologically challenged users need pointers on understanding app functionality to build better mental models on how to use an application

“Everyone just watches my TikToks instead”

“I just share whatever I’m listening to with the Spotify link”

“I just scour Instagram stories to play directly on Spotify”

“My friends and I have a common playlist that we all add to”

“I could spend the quarantine just making TikToks with my friends”

“Why manually search for a song when you can tap on a link”

Creative social media users need a way to showcase their creativity because it makes them feel unique and talented

Secondary Research Insights

Every user becomes your brand ambassador when you allow them to share something that they have created with their friends

Any new service has to fit into the ecosystem of the existing services that people use

There exists a sweet spot between getting users excited about learning something new, and overwhelming them with complexity

People don’t want to be just a user, they want to be part of a family

Users want to augment their real life with digital services, not replace real-time activities with screen-time.

How Might We's

Every user becomes your brand ambassador when you allow them to share something that they have created with their friends

How might we provide users with creative outlets to share their music with their social circles?

How might we provide users with additional music production and mixing tools to curate their music?

Any new service has to fit into the ecosystem of the existing services that people use

How might we incorporate ubiquity of service to fit into the ecosystem of existing services that people use?

Users look for rewards for having supported a brand’s journey

How might we offer rewards to make our loyal users feel appreciated and get people talking about it?

Users want to augment their real life with digital services, not replace real-time activities with screen-time.

How might we find ways to let users interact with our service without forcing them to look at their screens?

Ideation

How might we provide users with creative outlets to share their music with their social circles?

Users “zap” other users by pointing their phones at them and pressing a button

For every 3 songs you share on your social media you get one ad-free song

Allowing users to print out QR codes that let you follow their playlists when scanned

Creating social media-like features such as spotify user-feeds, spotify stories, spotify social groups, spotify messaging, lyric sharing, trivia sharing and so on

Spotify “virtual parties” for hosts to contribute in playlist creation

Physical Spotify parties/ competitions/ fests where disk jockeys, radio jockeys and music producers share their spotify music mixes along with the general public in a party-esque atmosphere. There would be Spotify merchandise, QR printing stations for music and maybe special appearances by artists

For every playlist you curate that gets over 100 followers gets the curator a free month of premium

Spotify curator awards wherein you submit your favourite playlists and the playlists with the most followers win rewards in terms of spotify merch, free subscriptions and so on.

Special effects pedals, mixing tools and production tools for creative spotify enthusiasts

Allowing direct content creation on Spotify with MIDI inputs

Spotify-jukebox themed restaurants/cafes/bars where anyone can play their favourite music by queueing up their playlists upon entering the restaurant and checking in with the spotify app

Spotify clubs wherein users share their song-mixes and at every stage users can vote ratings for the current jockey that has control of the system. If the rating falls low, the next jockey in the queue gets their turn to play for the club. The rating system persists across different clubs and over time so DJs and artists can earn credibility over time and build a reputation to be able to play more and more and then get paid by clubs.

Quick Solution Mockup