Case Study 03: Capturing the Short-Form Audio Market
The Challenge
The audio industry competes over the same consumer base, vying for listeners’ attention in an increasingly competitive marketplace. An established audio company that built a trusted reputation converting publisher content into bespoke short-form audio is working to stay ahead of the curve and deliver the next big thing in audio news. They established a startup team of experts who partnered with us to validate early assumptions and de-risk their new audio venture.
Our Approach
We became the company’s in-house out-of-house strategic partner. Together with their startup team, we crafted a compelling story for board members and early adopters. With company buy-in and a pool of users identified, we developed a strategy for validating assumptions based on consumer behavior in order to de-risk the investment and launch an MVP with proven early market traction.
Key Insight
Despite variability in consumer preferences, attracting a net-new audience of listeners rested in effectively transitioning consumers from a visual experience to an audio experience with a carefully crafted stack of programming that contains three important elements; a variety of subject matter with politically central undertones, conversational hosts, and captivating graphics with descending complexity to appeal to the visual-first consumer.
The Outcome
Through several rounds of testing and validation, we demonstrated traction that exceeded the audio industry standard among early adopters. We then visually modelled the findings and developed the deck that was used to present the findings to various internal and external stakeholders.