Every Thursday night I sit on top of the library cart at the law library, open an Internet Explorer window and go to Pandora.com, and start to work on my independent consulting project for ESGI Software. Pandora.com is a free customized streamline radio. Upon entry to the site, a query box pops up, requesting the name of your favorite song or band. It then processes this song based upon the Genome Project, which has micro-sliced each song according to a number of categories. These categories may include basic rock structure, folk influences, acoustic rhythm piano, extensive vamping, and electronic instruments. It then creates a play list of songs with these same categories. At any time you can teach Pandora.com, telling it to never play songs like the one you are hearing again or to play more songs like it.
I was introduced to Pandora.com within my first week of work at Google. As a former music major who had studied DRM and digital music, I found the concept fascinating. It was often when I was working late or or an intensive project that I found myself turning to Pandora.com. Often, this music serves as a bit of background music (as it is right now, as I write this journal). It is also almost always on while I am at work. Then how does Pandora.com attract listeners to it using more than just its SCA?
Pandora evokes mythological images of the first woman, bestowed upon humankind as a punishment for Prometheus's theft of fire. Entrusted with a box containing all the ills that could plague people, she opened it out of curiosity and thereby released all the evils of human life. Generally, people do not consider the evil. Rather, they recall the curiosity. When one hears Pandora an element of their mindset is that of curiosity. This is one of the elements that may bring people to Pandora.com. The actual website uses a metallic light blue on white background. Light blue often evokes feelings of health, healing, tranquility, understanding, and softness. White creates simplicity. The site simply calms curiosity. Once there, it is very easy to continue remain on that website.
As Pandora.com grows and increases budget, future ad campaigns should capture this curiosity. Current campaigns focus on the functionality rather than the recreational aspects of online radio. A focus on the name with a color that creates discomfort will cause people to seek resolution, which will be received upon arrival to the website. Pandora.com has great potential to be a fetish site and it has the potential to launch towards this status.
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