Marketers use focus groups to determine the consumer attitude toward a new product before millions are poured into launching it. It is a form of qualitative research and practiced by companies of every size and discipline. Focus groups are designed by experts, require considerable resources and take time. However, the core principle of acquiring pertinent feedback in order to improve a product or arrive at a solution for a problem before “the damage is done” can be effectively applied on a much smaller scale, if done right.
I caught up with the General Manger of SoundOut, James Sopper, this week to find out how his company has brought the value of focus groups to artists and labels through a cost-effective and intuitive online platform.
James, please tell me a little about your professional background, how you got involved with SoundOut, and your role at the company.
I graduated from Imperial College in London with a Masters Degree in Aeronautical Engineering about nine years ago and, pretty soon after that, I took on the role of Technical Manager for a triple World Speed Record campaign. After a good few years of speed-sailing and many days spent on frozen lakes in Canada, I began working for a large US medical company as a project specialist and it was while I was there that I was introduced to David, CEO of Slicethepie, by a mutual friend. After speaking to David at length about the new business he’d spent the last year setting up he invited me to join the team (I say “team” although at that stage it was four desks and a foosball table set up in what was formerly a school classroom!). Three months later, in mid June 2007, Slicethepie was born. Since then, I’ve been leading various strategic projects behind the scenes at Slicethepie, the latest and by far the biggest being SoundOut. My current role is SoundOut General Manager and I’m tasked with day-to-day operations as well as pushing forward with new developments, features and improvements .
What is SoundOut’s core offering?
SoundOut’s core offering is Consumer Insight and Analytics sourced directly from music consumers. We take a whole stack of blind reviews of your track (both numeric 0-10 ratings and written text reviews), crunch the data for you and present the results in an easy-to-read report. We report on things like gender bias for the track (whether guys like it more than girls for example), age bias and whether there was a consensus of opinion on the track or whether opinion was divided to name a few. We also analyse the text reviews using some very clever processes built for us by CFL Software Limited which pull out the key themes mentioned in the reviews – things like “heavy bass line” or “long intro” – and let you know the overall sentiment behind those themes (whether they were thought of as positive aspects of the track or whether those elements let the track down). I guess the main difference to other sites is that the reviews submitted to SoundOut are blind; the reviewers can’t choose which tracks they review and they aren’t told the name of the track or artist until after they’ve submitted their review so the artist gets genuine, anonymous feedback. We also do a lot of analysis on the actual text used in the reviews which is revolutionary.
When did you launch SoundOut and what has the response been like to date?
SoundOut was launched on January 13th 2009 so it’s really only been about five months since launch. The response has been great so far but what’s really surprised us is the number of SoundOut users who have come back to order more reports.
What is the relationship of SoundOut to Slicethepie?
They’re sisters! All the reviews for track submitted to SoundOut are collected via the Slicethepie Scout Rooms. There’s a huge army of music fans out there who have dedicated a lot of time to reviewing music on Slicethepie – SoundOut simply taps into that knowledge and experience.
How do you propose that the artists/music promoters who order a report from SoundOut leverage this data to meaningful, career-advancing opportunities?
That’s the million dollar question! SoundOut reports are being used by large number of music professionals for various purposes – everything from radio station programmers drawing up playlists to labels as a pre-A&R filter and, of course, the artists themselves. So I guess it depends on what you want, for example, the age and gender information from a SoundOut report can help an artist decide which radio stations are the most appropriate ones to send demo tapes to. I won’t go so far as to say that a SoundOut report is going to open doors for you but it will give you a little insight as to which doors to go and knock on first.
A report from SoundOut is certainly nice to have… but is it a “must have” in today’s climate?
I’d say that in today’s climate, information is a “must have”. Gone are the days of just seeing how many “friends” you can get to add you as you can on MySpace – bands need genuine feedback from people who listen to music just as much as record labels, radio stations and music supervisors. It’s no secret that the majors have been using market research and focus groups for years but the costs associated with these were always beyond the reach of all but the biggest marketing budgets. SoundOut offers a credible, reliable, fast and cost effective solution to bring this kind of data to aspiring bands and indie labels.
What success stories, if any, have you recorded to date, attributed to the use of SoundOut?
The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and seeing as SoundOut is only five months old it’s still too early to tell for sure. I can tell you that a number of artists have put entire albums through to help them determine which single they should release first – those albums are due to be released later on in the year so it’ll be interesting to see what conclusions they draw from their reports and how those relate to the decisions the artists themselves have made.
What can we expect from you in the near future?
We’ve got some pretty big plans for SoundOut and are putting the finishing touches to some really neat new features. The accuracy of SoundOut has attracted a lot of attention and because of that some of the stuff we’ll be releasing later in the year will help artists monetise their music and access new markets… so stay tuned for more updates! As always, if anyone has suggestions, comments or ideas, then please feel free to email me at info@soundout.com
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