Women’s Voices — A Product Story

This post is part of a series about the women behind ‘Women’s Voices’, an in-app story created by Deezer for International Women’s Day:

Part. 1: Women’s Voices — A Product Story
Part. 2: Women’s Voices — A Brand Story
Part. 3: Women’s Voices — A Data Story
Part. 4: Women’s Voices — A Product Design Story
Part. 5: Women’s Voices — A Product Marketing Story

On March 8th, we launched an in-app story to amplify women’s voices.

There are Instagram, Snapchat and other social media stories, but what kind of story can Deezer have, you might ask?

This is a story with a purpose to celebrate and advocate women behind music and podcasts, and make a difference in their lives.

The story

Any user can currently discover the story in the ‘Music’ homepage of their Deezer mobile application only (with the minimum app version 6.2.13 on Android and 8.25 on iOS), in the fourth rail after the ‘Playlists you’ll love’ section.

Once you dive into the story, you will see a series of swipeable cards (as you are used to seeing on social media apps) that include engaging insights on where women stand globally, a trivia question, profiles of global and local women who made an impact in music, and of course, playlists and podcasts that have been hand-picked by our amazing Editorial team. The music that is playing in the background of each card will invite you to immerse yourself in the world of women, and set the right mood straight away!

The great thing about our story is that you don’t have to keep it to yourself. Every card is easily shareable so that you can start a conversation or a debate with your friends, or just put it out there to raise awareness and pay a tribute!

Creating this story has been quite a journey and has involved many teams in different divisions at Deezer — from Product & Engineering to Data, Brand, Marketing, etc., a fair share of them being women. So it seemed like a good opportunity to introduce some of the women who worked hard to make this project happen, and to listen to the voices of some of the women who are behind ‘Women’s Voices’.

The women behind the story

My name is Aina and I am a Product Manager, leading the social sharing experience at Deezer. My mission is to enable Deezer users to share their love for music and podcasts, and connect them with their friends or favorite artists. It involves a constant research of user problems and opportunities, and what I like most is working with my team and multiple stakeholders to drive change!

While pivoting from the #MyDeezerMonth experience (i.e. insights on your monthly listening habits, top artists, top tracks, etc.) to our next project, we were looking for a powerful story to connect with our users, and that our users would be proud to share. I led a series of brainstorming sessions with our pilot countries (France and Brazil) to identify topics where we could make a difference. Deezer being an equal opportunity employer, the International Women’s Day appeared to us like the perfect occasion to make an impact regarding a cause we stand for. Once it was defined as a brand direction to do more than celebrating women, and to also advocate and strive for change, the second part of my job was to shape the story we wanted to tell our users, together with talented colleagues from various teams like Editors, Brand, Artist Marketing, Product Marketing, Design, Tech, Data, Social Media, PR. Last but not least, it was my responsibility to ensure that the in-app story was released properly and on time, which would have been impossible without everyone’s contribution.

The biggest challenge on this amazing project was to orchestrate different teams to put the story together. Each has its own constraints and it was a great opportunity for me to learn how other teams operate. I also learned that in order to move “fast” you need to take it “slow” with people, i.e. take the time to get to know each other and the project to work effectively. Having a clear purpose with the will to make a change surely unites and motivates people though. We acted as one and stepped up to take an active position in the fight for gender equality, by challenging centuries-old stereotypes and biases. Seeing everyone’s contribution, ideas and passion was very inspiring to me!

What I like most about the ‘Women’s Voices’ experience is that the real beauty of the story lies in the powerful combination of its core — a clear purpose and surprising facts, along with amplifiers that make the story truly alive — hand-picked audio excerpts, catchy visuals and dynamic transitions.

I hope that, with it, we achieve what we envisioned at the start:

• Raise awareness on gender inequality in music

• Celebrate women’s diverse talents and impacts

• Inspire users to take an action to make a change by streaming and sharing women’s art

When the time comes to rerun the data on gender equality overall and by genres, I hope we will see an increase!

Finally, when I think about women’s voices, I’m thinking about all the women that surround me. They have played so many roles. The key for me is to pay attention to what women think, feel, say and do.

This post is part of a series of articles written by some of the women behind the ‘Women’s Voices’ project. Continue the reading with the second part of the series!

If this initiative resonates with you and you would like to help us build new experiences on Deezer, take a look at our open positions and join one of our teams!