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Deezer Discovery & Concept Testing

with Tigo Tanzania (telecommunications company)

As a Consumer Understanding Researcher at Tigo Tanzania, I was part of a 3 people team that was tasked with designing and conducting a foundational research study that would help the company understand user needs and wants in order to validate the partnership and launch of a new music streaming platform with Deezer. My role in the team was to conduct, analyse and present research results and recommendations to the product and marketing teams. I also contributed to the study design.

Background 

Tigo Tanzania was planning to offer a music streaming service specific to smartphone users - in partnership with already existing music streaming platform, Deezer. Users would be able to access more than 30 million songs on their phones. Previous reports had shown that music was considered the main source of entertainment for Tigo subscribers, especially contemporary music from both Tanzania and outside.

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Since this was a new product for their users, Tigo wanted to understand the user segment that would adopt this product, what factors could become barriers to adoption, customers' willingness to pay for this product and to discover ways to add features that would appeal to the local consumer. In order to provide these insights, we designed two separate studies: 

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  1. Deezer Discovery Research

  2. Deezer Concept Testing

Deezer.jpeg

Study 1: Deezer Discovery Research

Research Goals:

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  1. Understand the Deezer user 

  2. Identify key barriers to becoming a Deezer user

  3. Discover effective methods to better communicate Deezer strengths

Methodology:

 

Step 1 - Screen Participants 

We defined our target attributes and designed a screener to ensure that our participants were eligible for the study.

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Step 2 - Participant Grouping

After screening, we divided the participants into 3 groups:

  1. Active smartphone user 

  2. Non-active smartphone user

  3. Churners (Tigo subscribers who switch with another telecom company)

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Step 3 - Research Design

We designed a multi-method survey and in-depth interview questions. The interview would also involve interaction with the Deezer app by prompting the user to complete specific tasks like signing up, searching and listening to songs.

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Step 4 - Conduct Field Research 

871 telephonic surveys were completed by the call center team and I interviewed 10 users from each participant group.​

Critical Insights:

 

  • 48% of users listen to music on their smartphone but only 34% listen through an app 

    • The biggest competitor app was YouTube followed by Mzikii

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  • Likes about existing music streaming apps:

    • Availability of old songs and variety​

    • Free songs

    • Business opportunity for small artists

    • Shows likes/views so you know that a song is popular

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  • Dislikes about existing music streaming apps:

    • Free songs are bad quality or interrupted by "annoying" ads​

    • Many steps from signing up to downloading a song

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  • Majority of users prefer listening to local versus international music â€‹

Deezer Specific Insights:

 

  • Likes about the Deezer App: 

    • Categorisation of preferred music in the beginning

    • Access to whole albums

    • Good song quality

    • Looks good graphically

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  • Dislikes about the Deezer App:

    • Can’t rewind songs

    • Uses too many MBs

    • No local identity - "it's not for someone like me"

    • Too selective because not everybody has email

    • Payment packages and process was not clear

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  • 21 out of 30 users interviewed found the registration process difficult:

    • Majority of users did not have an email address or Facebook account and those were the only two options for signing up

    • The sign-up page was in English so the process was difficult for non-English speakers

Research Impact:

 

  • Localisation of the app:                                                                                                 

    • The entire Deezer app was translated to Swahili

    • Tigo developed partnerships with Tanzanian artists to include more local music

    • Local music artists and songs were at the top of the music categorisation survey in the app​

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  • More options for signing up:                                                                                                In addition to email and Facebook, users would be able to log in using their Tigo phone number.​

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  • Designing additional features that appeal to the local consumer:​                                            The insights helped us to build user personas, brainstorm concepts and design the next research study that would ensure the success of the product when launched.

Study 2: Deezer Concept Testing

Research Goals:

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  1. Discover features that appeal to the Tanzanian music consumer 

  2. Discover effective ways for Deezer to stand out from existing competitors

Methodology:

 

Step 1 - Create User Personas 

Using insights from the previous study, we created 3 personas to build empathy in designing the concepts that would differentiate Deezer from the competition.

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Step 2 - Brainstorm Winning Concepts

Using the personas and human-centered design principles, we brainstormed 10 ideas that our users would love. We then shared the ideas with different departments at Tigo and put them up for a vote. We landed on 3 ideas that we proceeded to test with users: Tigo Music Portal, Tigo Tracks and Tigo Celeb. (I am unable to disclose further on the ideas due to company privacy).

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Step 3 - Participant Grouping

Since we were testing for preference, we decided to test our ideas with competitor users as well. We divided the participants into the following 3 groups:

  1. Tigo Primary SIM

  2. Vodacom Primary SIM

  3. Airtel Primary SIM

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Step 4 - Research Design

I created storyboards of the 3 ideas and designed focus group questions.

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Step 5 - Conduct Field Research 

We conducted 6 focus groups - 2 focus groups per participant group. Each focus group had 8 participants.​

Critical Insights:

 

  • Tigo Music Portal was the most popular among all groups                                                   The second popular idea was Tigo Tracks.

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  • Tigo Music Portal and Tigo Tracks solved previous user problems for the discovery research                                                                                                                       

    • The concepts improved perception of value for price due to clear packaging

    • Appreciation for use of fewer MBs due to song packages 

    • Exclusive "Tigo subscriber" concepts made users feel special - users using competitors as primary SIM would switch back to Tigo

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  • Concepts differentiated Deezer from competitors                                                              Users felt that Deezer was different by describing it as a "one stop shop" rather than another music streaming service.​

Research Impact:​

  • Tigo Music Portal increased brand awareness and likeability

Tigo helped local artists earn more money from music sales and exposure in international markets through Deezer. This increased brand loyalty from users because Tigo was not only supporting young and struggling artists, more and more local songs were added to the platform.

Reflection

  • Diversify participants                                                                                                          Even though the majority of Tigo users are young (16 - 30), I would have diversified the age group to include older participants (31 - 45) because churning usually started at age 30 where people would switch to competitors who had more products catered to them.​

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  • Add Interviews to the Concept Testing                                                                          Due to time constraints, we were only able to do focus groups but the insights would have been richer with a few interviews to mitigate social group biases.​

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