Solution

The business solution

iHeartRadio partnered with TribalScale based on our strong backlog of work in the media industry, and particularly for our expertise in the OTT space. To build out the iHeartRadio Family application forAmazon FireTV, our work included:

DESIGN WORKSHOP

Our team led an internal design workshop at the iHeart voices in New York with their executive team to best determine their priorities and to outline a potential iHeartRadio Family application for OTT.

USER TESTING

In conjunction with the internal design workshop, we conducted user interviews and testing to best grasp what features and elements a user would like from the app. This work helped streamline scoping and ensured all were aligned.

ENGAGING ANIMATIONS

To better resonate with the target audience (ages 0-13) we created a series of 4 animated backgrounds to accompany the audio content. The designs were highly innovative and rendered particularly well on FireTV as the operating systems allows for higher design complexity. Further, our animations were applauded by other companies, including Disney.

EMERGING TECHNOLOGY

Through pair programming, we built the app on Amazon’s FireTV, the first of its kind, as the operating system (OS) is highly flexible and customizable, and allows for deep-linking across applications. FireTV also continuously releases new devices, as opposed to other OTT platforms, which helps ensure the iHeartRadio Family application will persist across new generations of devices.

ITERATIONS AND PIVOTS

Upon releasing the minimum viable product (MVP) we conducted further testing and made adjustments based on real user feedback. For example, users expressed desire in being able to choose which background was displayed, and when. In response, we introduce a background selector along with the player.

Outcome

How the business benefited

Through our work, we helped iHeartRadio expand their reach, attract new and young listeners, and increase overall engagement. However, and most importantly, iHeartRadio was the first in the media streaming space to launch a family-oriented OTT application.

As the iHeart team is headquartered in New York and our team is based in Toronto, our quality assurance engineers stepped in to manage iHeartRadio’s expectations and proved highly capable of approving and delivering bugs on a daily basis. Through this work, TribalScale and iHeartRadio fostered a trusting relationship and established a long-lasting partnership.

To date, our teams have worked together over 7 successful projects across various OTT platforms.