Waves

The challenge

10 years into existence, based in Israel with branches worldwide, known for its excellency among high-end producers and sound creatives, Waves experienced many difficulties. Most of the annual sales turned out to be on black friday, company's positioning as an expansive giant didn't attract new users and the "sell hard" messaging they came down to didn't do them justice.

Many head figures, so accustomed to knowing the best way in the field, seamed at unease to admit they might miss out on some perspective shifts in the industry.

It was clear that change is needed. The decision was to target new 3 audiences that are less high end and have a better website. But learning there were no strong and clear brand fundaments to direct it further, it was essential to set them first.

The goal

Help the brand target 3 new audiences

Connect the brand to a mission that gives it a purpose beyond selling quality products

Shift the mindset to understanding why added value is important

Show a short term and long term growth plan to implement the mission and vision

Help the brand grow its revenue

Execution scope

Research, brand identity defining, growth strategy (for brand persona, community and product), product UX, marketing UX

Setting a brand vision

Anyone with the passion to do music, experienced or not, can do so with accessible pro-level, legacy tools and guidance

Setting a brand mission

Mentor uncompromising producers

Target audience

Studio engineers and producers
Musicians and singer/songwriters
Electronic producers
Post production technicians
Live technicians
Bedroom producers

Brand characteristics

Personal
Global
Long term partner
Creative master mind
Opportunity provider
Technological inventor

First growth front dive in

Initial research surfaced perception gaps of user needs:

Assumption

"Pro level" sound is a widely used and clear term to all users

Research finding

"Pro level" sound is an unfamiliar term

Opportunity

Assumption

Legendary music producers are the main attraction

Research finding

Millennial approach - legendary figures are unappealing

Opportunity

Assumption

Being high end is a user magnet

Research finding

Brand perception if of a far, elite and not "user level" brand

Opportunity

These findings encouraged an Internal and external in depth SWOT:

7 internal team talks were conducted

Internal  and external weaknesses and threats

Internal and external strengths and opportunities

Company's DNA and core user needs got clarified:

Brand persona

Each characteristic and its implementation steps

Personal

Ex: "get personalized content" feature

Global

Ex: "discover global artists and workflows" feature

Long term partner

Ex: "the stories that made us who we are" feature

Creative mastermind

Ex: recommendations for the "next step" opportunities

Opportunity provider

Ex: featured artist in the home page

Technological inventor

Mentorship ecosystem

Clarified community needs, resources and implementation steps

The 6 user interviews, mostly of seasoned artists, revealed the needs and collaborative opportunities of seasoned artists vs young artists

The engine for community expansion are community leaders

Out of the 6 interviewed, one fit the community leader personality, and another fit the "endorser/supporter" personality. All 4 others were passive towards community engagement.

Creating a mentorship ecosystem required identifying local natural community leaders among existing long term users, those already stepping up in their engagement within the community.

A community event invite structure

Using local community leaders as hosts, such events can be created anywhere worldwide.

Authentic connections with  users via fb polls

When a post gets more than 200 community members likes, a poll can be added to turn it into a live event, to "test the waters" with what content users want to see.

Community shared sound library structure

Seasoned artists can endorse and promote creations they see potential in.

Young artists can learn inner "how to"s by watching the breakdown of how each sound was made with Waves tools.

Conversational navigation that matches different target audiences

Sales approach

Making the product personal to your growth, by showing what was made with it and how many community members use it already.

Price range is never the main selling point.

(The before:)

Social media

Allow community shares with medium quality footage -  accessing high profile producers counts more than perfect footage.

Raw footage looks like sharing from within the creative process and it is relatable to all producers.

Product design

UX design for

Central, product management app for studios and individuals

Prior design:

UX research

Benchmarking

Interior product and tech team interviews

User interviews

Mapping pain points and opportunities

Feature prioritization

Analyzing simple vs complex user flows (managing a few licenses to managing hundreds)

Research collected user behavior and app issues

Most complex users are large facilities that might use 200-1000 licenses across 100 studios.

Most simple users manage 1 license products between mobile and stationary devices.

Licenses can be sent and transferred separately.

Some product sets are made for collaborators that need to use it offline without a login.

Among many issues with the prior central is its limited ability to install and activate one product and license at a time, when there is a need for bigger scopes.

Also, the prior Central has no device license tracking present, so when moving many licenses, it's unclear where is which and a need to "retrieve them all to base" arises.

Retrieving a lost license from a lost device requires tech support, which might be time consuming.

Key features for the new UX

Installing/reinstalling older versions (for their preferred workflows)

Downloading and transferring products without licenses (just their installation files)

Downloading and transferring product licenses without installation files

Creating sets of products for different uses

Multiple license activation per device

Offline mode

Recovery mode (for when devices get lost)

All license location tracking per product

Selection of partial products to use within a bundle

UX design for

Presets app, each artist's personal product settings shared

Achieved value

A better brand that supports creatives emerged to the world. A shift of understanding what a brand mission was successful + taking responsibility of the role the brand wants to take in the music industry. A clear and agreed upon brand mission, vision and strategy were set. Brand differentiation by adding value to the community made it more appealing, content and product price range were adjusted to meet the needs of the 3 new target audience profiles, clear short term and long term growth implementation steps were set, marketing strategy that reflects brand's values better took effect, new user researched based UX of the central app was presented.