BIG DATA
AT
PANDORA MEDIA,
INC.
BY: L E E YA R ES SOM
What is Pandora Radio?
• Customer-oriented music discover service that presents user-specific music
playlist based on personal preferences
•Current leading streaming radio market
•Monthly audience of about 72 million active listeners
•Mission Statement: “Give people music they love.”
Marketing Mix
Product
Performance
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Customer Value
Location
•
•
•
Australia
New Zealand
U.S
Leeya Ressom
Female
College Student
African American
Interested in HipHop/R&BS
• Lives in U.S.
Time: Throughout the day
Age: 19 yrs. old, Gender: Female
•
•
•
•
Promotion
Contexts
Musical Preference: Hip/Hop & R&B
Price
•
Free subscription
•
Premium account
for $4.99
per/month
I chose Drake as my musician of choice.
Played all of his recent hits and his old
music as well.
Also played other songs from similar artists
with similar song styles such as J.Cole
Pandora was able to handpick a playlist that was
customized especially for
my taste!
this builds…
Loyal Customers
Positive Reputation
ROI from advertisements
How Pandora Makes Money?
Subscription 11%
Revenue
Advertising
89%
In the third quarter of 2014, Pandora made $180
mill. $144 mill. or 80% came from advertising
• Pandora provides a platform for more accurate consumer audio advertisements than radio stations
• Focuses on local advertisement due to access of factors such as consumer demographics
• “This is really powerful information, and ensures that you don’t waste your money in the wrong area.”- Heidi Browning,
Sr. Vice President of Strategic Solutions at Pandora Media, Inc.
Pandora
Operational
Costs
According to Pandora, for every 1 million songs played it will cost $1,370.
Resulted in $250 mill. in 2102 alone.
1. Boost subscription rate to $4.99
2. Monetize more traffic
3. Monitor competition
How Does Pandora Work?
HOW?
Pandora’s “Musical Genome Project”
•Largest taxonomy of music information ever
collected (About 500,000 songs)
•Created in 2000 by Tim Westergren and
small team of entrepreneurs.
•Pandora hire “musicologists” to break down
the “DNA” level of a song, identifying and
rating elements such as meter, tempo, etc.
•Those data points build algorithms to help
seek songs with similar or the same
attributes.
Breakdown of the Genome Project
The project is made up of 5 sub-genomes: Pop/Rock, Hip-Hop/Electronica, Jazz,
World Music, and Classical.
A song has approximately 450 “genes” and each gene corresponds to a
characteristic of the music (i.e. background vocals, gender of lead vocalist,
melody, harmony)
Rock and Pop have 150 genes, Rap has 350, Jazz songs have about 400 and
World/Classical has 300-450
Breakdown of the Genome Project (con’t)
Each gene is assigned a number between 0 and 5, in halfinteger increments and determined for each song.
The numbers assigned are crucial for weighing the
importance of each gene.
Breakdown of the Genome Project (con’t)
Each song is analyzed by a musician in a process that takes about 25
minutes per song.
10% of songs analyzed by more than one musicologist ensures statistical
reliability.
For each vector of one or more songs, a list of other similar songs is built
using what the company calls a “matching algorithm.”
• Insert Artist/Song
• Plays song based on musical similarity
Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down
• Music Genome Project
• Similar Artist/Song styles
• Music Discovery
Weather Analytics for Pandora
Although there are many factors Pandora considers for its company, one it has not placed focus
on is consumer local weather.
Why is
weather
important for
a business?
According to the company Planalytics, accurately identifying
weather-driven opportunities enables companies to effectively
promote their brand and grow their business.
How Can
Pandora Use
Weather
Analytics?
Measure the Impact
Inspect it’s sales history and find out when, where and how much
weather impacts the business.
Hypothesis
• Music has a direct effect on an individual’s mood.
• Listening to music can reflect how we feel or even alter the way we feel
• Upbeat music
happy, active, excited, etc.
• Slow songs
upset, calm, sluggish
• Weather also has effect on an individual’s mood.
According to John M. Grohol, Psy. D. from PsychCentral
“Humidity, temperature, and hours of sunshine had the greatest effect on mood. High
levels of humidity lowered scores on concentration while increasing reports of
sleepiness. Rising temperatures lowered anxiety and skepticism mood scores. ”
How Can Pandora Use Weather Analytics? (con’t)
Weather and Music
Relationship
An individuals taste in music can change
depending on their local weather
Genres: Indie, Slow R&B, Jazz
Genres: Hip-Hop/Rap, Pop, Top 100
Me
Weather and
Genome Project
Integration
Depending on the location of the customer, there are many
different factors to consider along with weather:
Temperature
Humidity
For example, Texas is more likely to experience hot temperatures
with wet rain or hot winters while Massachusetts can experiences
cold temperatures with sunshine or snowstorms.
How
do we keep track of not only weather, but
temperature and humidity across the Australia, New Zealand, and
the U.S.?
Weather and Genome Project Integration (con’t)
 Genome Project contains about 450 genes
(background vocals, gender of musician, etc.) per
song
 Integrating the weather, temp. and humidity into
the Genome Project could allow for more accurate
weather analysis for Pandora’s music
Solution
 The project should record the relationship
between the genes of songs listened to and the
weather, temp. and humidity of locations based on
consumer zip code
Data of the consumers music choice with the
combination of all those weather factors should be
stored
 Once the weather, humidity and temp. and song
genes are correlated, matching algorithms should be
built for other songs with the similar relationships
Conclusion
“Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do
without.” - Confucius
Pandora Radio is the best internet radio option because of it’s unique
ability to create playlists that cater to each individual consumer. The
workers behind Pandora Radio spent hours of research and analysis on a
Big Data system that build algorithms to provide us with the perfect music
for anytime of the day, anywhere!
Work Cited
"Pandora Radio's Dominance Built On Big Data Edge." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, n.d. Web. 09 Aug. 2015.
"Pandora - Marketing Spending 2014 | Statistic." Statista. Statista, n.d. Web. 09 Aug. 2015.
"Big Data Technology, Streaming Music, And Pandora's Competitive 'Moat'" - Pandora Media (NYSE:P).
N.p., n.d. Web.
09 Aug. 2015.
Stella, Rick. "Who Picks the Best Songs? We Test Pandora, Spotify, Beats Music, Rdio, and ITunes Radio."
Digital Trends. Digital Trends, 02 Nov. 2014. Web. 09 Aug. 2015.
"About the Music Genome Project." Pandora. Pandora, n.d. Web. 09 Aug. 2015.
Walker, Rob. "The Song Decoders." The New York Times. The New York Times, 17 Oct. 2009. Web. 09 Aug. 2015.