Assessment - piano PDF

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Alireza Kafaee Fanaee Pour ID : 31465218 Word Count : 1614 Tutor’s Name : Teresa Lee

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Introduction: Simply Piano is a mobile device app that teaches and supervises Piano learners developed by the private, Israeli company ‘JoyTunes’. The main purpose of this relatively young company – founded in 2011 - is that “Whether you want to learn piano on your own, or you’re starting from scratch, Simply Piano will guide you … to make your musical dreams come true.” This article will closely analyse JoyTunes targeting strategies and target market which identified using a range of segmentation variables. Furthermore, the article will shed light on the product positioning of JoyTunes through a concise look at the market that they are operating in and their competitors. In order to serve this purpose a perceptual map has been employed showing the relative stance of each app in the market. Ultimately the article endeavours to offer a deeper understanding JoyTunes marketing strategies and their perspective for their main product : SimplyPiano app. Target Strategy : Before the introduction of the Simply Piano app, the market of online piano tutorials was already replete with similar or even nearly identical products. Given the situation of the market, JoyTunes adopted a differentiated marketing strategy and attempted to arrange its marketing mix of subtle elements that are missing from the basket of its competitors. Online lessons on theory and different songs are plenty online and for free, but these are the crucial elements that only a human instructor can offer such as, instant feedback on rhythm and playing techniques and etc, that no video could offer that Simply Piano pursued using cutting edge technology that gave JoyTunes its desirable product mix. These unique elements enable Simply Piano to pursue a ‘mass marketing’ strategy beside their mainstream ‘target marketing’ plans. This is evident in their recent ads in which instead of the app being a complementary resource to piano learners, the app is depicted as the main and mere source of music lessons for children, which further consolidates JoyTunes aspiration to go beyond the music learner’s circle and hit the mass market. Further elaborating on the details and features of the app reveals more details about the marketing strategies adopted by JoyTunes. A close look at the theory behind the entire course structure shows that they can only take one from no experience level to the intermediate level at best, this illustrates that the company’s focus is more on the new starters who embody almost the entire mass marketing target. Meanwhile, there are clear signs that JoyTunes wants to continually expand their specific target market of piano learners through a close collaboration with piano teachers, to whom they have announced to offer free access and special features to monitor their students. finally, as Simply Piano keeps growing among piano students, the company’s ultimate goal seems to be relentlessly developing their technology to the point that it can replace a human instructor and become a mass market product.

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Target Market and Segmentation Variable : The market for music lessons, like many other educational branches, is to a great extent homogenous. At the end of the day all the learners must understand and master a traditional array of theories and technics, even though it might be through slightly different paths. The two main missions of JoyTunes perhaps should have been first, how to engage the best target group, and second, how to prevent learners from dropping out. Studies on Australian music players show that around 37% of music learners are aged 517 and a further 24% aged 18 – 34 (2). This explains the course design of the app, where very little theory is placed in lessons and mostly the focus is on playing songs and keeping the environment as playful and ‘fun’ as possible. Another important demographic factor is household income as piano is one of the most expensive musical instruments widely used, the main focus of JoyTunes has been Western developed countries in which more people can afford the cost and space of a piano or a keyboard at least.

As mentioned before, perhaps one of the most common ends to the music learners is that they drop out relatively early on. The chart below shows a variety of reasons why it is so common to discontinue music learning paths;

Ref : https://gb.abrsm.org/en/making-music/4-the-statistics/ Simply Piano’s interactive design and light theory content are attempts to minimise drop out due to ‘Lost Interest’ and ‘Busy with school/work/others’. On the other hand, the monthly fee of $10/month when compared to $40/hour average rate of piano instructors characterise SimplyPiano as a far more affordable choice than a conventional tutor, which means a feasible choice for the majority of western societies’ members to learn piano.

In terms of behavioural factor, Simply Piano users are divided into 2 main categories. First, the price sensitive group who use the app as an alternative to human instructors, and second, the group who seek receiving benefit from the app by using it as a complement to human instructors. The relatively low price of the service makes it reasonable for both of these groups to use Simply piano. 3

Product Positioning : Even though Simply Piano started as one of the very few startups in this field, the globalattention that it received and the various award that the company has won since, has attracted a number of serious competitors and made the market significantly more competitive. This can be seen in the pricing of companies such as FlowKey, Melodics that have the exact same annual fee as Simply Piano, a similarity that more than being a mere accident uncovers the competition based pricing strategy adopted by the firms in this market. However, JoyTunes still has the lead of the market ( to comprehend the advantage of Simply Piano against its competitors refer to the perceptual map provided ). After scrutinising technical reviews and customers’ comments, the secret to the exceptional popularity of Simply Piano is revealed : sound recognition technology. Almost the entire course content and teaching style of SimplyPiano could be found in a competitive app with the very same price. Added to this, free piano tutorial videos are plenty on the internet for easy pieces and also could be on the competitor’s apps. However, SimplyPiano has succeeded to distinguish its note recognition technology far ahead of its competitors. This is not simply another exclusive feature such as quick theory quizzes or etc. The note recognition and prompt feedback system is the central reason behind hiring human instructors. Simply Piano utilises advanced algorithms and computational models capable of learning and improving, in order to address the greatest need of anyone practicing a musical instrument : having an expert instructor always at hand.

Perceptual Map : - Due to the majority of the companies in this relatively small market being privately owned, there is very little reliable information on the growth rate, change in revenue and etc. Hence, an alternative way of evaluating each company’s performance is used on the grounds of some basic economic statistics. - ‘Popularity Index’ is the metric used in the following perceptual map to compare the performance of each of the app in the market. - Popularity index takes into account the number of reviews of each app ( indicative of the spread of the app ), multiplies it by its average rating on app store of US and Australia ( indicative of customer satisfaction ) and finally in order to normalise the data, the result is divided by the number of years that the company has been operating. (Minimising any bias against younger companies).

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Name

Price ( per month )

Popularity index

Flow Key

$10

21.8

Simply Piano

$10

148.64

Yousician

$21

28.174

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Conclusion : Overall, Simply Piano has been a success in the field of mobile applications and thanks to the company’s comprehensive marketing plans, continues to be known as one of the most successful apps in education. However, at this stage the company has a long way to go to bring their vision of ‘simply’ learning piano into the reality. As an instance, even though the app has been downloaded over 10 million times globally, yet less than %2 of these downloads have turned into active users of the app. This proves that the company has many steps to take in order to hit the mass market and make their program a reliable teacher for “Simply [learning] Piano “.

References : Text Books: Elliott, G., Rundle-Thiele, S., Waller, D., Smith, S., Eades, L., & Bentrott, I. (2017). MARKETING (AU) 4E HYBRID. [Place of publication not identified]: JOHN WILEY. Armstrong, G., Adam, S., Denize, S., Volkov, M., & Kotler, P. Principles of marketing. Journals : Schivinski, B., & Dabrowski, D. (2014). The effect of social media communication on consumer perceptions of brands. Journal Of Marketing Communications, 22(2), 189-214. doi: 10.1080/13527266.2013.871323 de Vries, L., Gensler, S., & Leeflang, P. (2012). Popularity of Brand Posts on Brand Fan Pages: An Investigation of the Effects of Social Media Marketing. Journal Of Interactive Marketing, 26(2), 83-91. doi: 10.1016/j.intmar.2012.01.003 Kübler, R., Pauwels, K., Yildirim, G., & Fandrich, T. (2018). App Popularity: Where in the World are Consumers Most Sensitive to Price and User Ratings?. Journal Of Marketing, 82(5), 20-44. doi: 10.1509/jm.16.0140

Websites : Australian Attitudes to Music | Australian Music Association. (2020). Retrieved 18 September 2020, from https://australianmusic.asn.au/australian-attitudes-to-music/

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Free for Teachers: The Partnership Continues. (2020). Retrieved 18 September 2020, from https://www.joytunes.com/blog/music-innovation/free-teachers-partnershipcontinues/ he 7 Best Piano Learning Apps for Total Newbies (Comparison). (2020). Retrieved 18 September 2020, from https://promusicianhub.com/best-piano-learning-apps/ (2020). Retrieved 18 September 2020, from https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/joytunes Sproule, G. (2020). Simply Piano review: An In-Depth Look at the Platform (2020). Retrieved 18 September 2020, from https://www.pianodreamers.com/simply-pianoreview/ Music Education Startup JoyTunes Raises $25 Million. (2020). Retrieved 18 September 2020, from https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3769058,00.html https://apps.apple.com/au/app/simply-piano-by-joytunes/id1019442026 https://apps.apple.com/au/app/flowkey/id1020357408 Ads : https://www.joytunes.com/simply-piano

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