Unlocking Dolby’s product opportunities for social media creator audiences
Disclaimer: Due to an NDA, data and slides from the original project cannot be shared. As a result, while some recreated slides are shared, the majority of this case study focuses on the process and impact.
At a Glance
Foundational generative study for Dolby's expansion into the $10B social media content creator editing market.
Goal: Map the creator landscape, understand pain points, and identify Dolby's strategic opportunities for value delivery and differentiation.
Role: Internal Project Lead (prior to Research Manager hire), Primary Synthesis Owner (post-hire)
Impact: Reshaped the product and business strategy, pivoting the roadmap and sparking a new innovation workstream.
Business Challenge
Dolby looked to expand its reach into the fast-growing social media content creator economy. To identify where and how, we mapped the creator landscape to determine where Dolby had the strongest opportunity to deliver value and differentiate its offerings. I collaborated with an agency for execution, and led the project until our team hired a new research manager.
Research Goals
Understand motivations and aspirations of creators and segment creators into frequently occurring profiles
Map creators’ audiovisual production workflows and their key pain points
Identify strategic opportunities for Dolby with creators
Approach
I managed the engagement with the external agency, leading project scoping, methodology design, recruitment strategy, data quality assurance, and providing real-time moderation guidance.
33 diaries
Allowed participants to open up more authentically about their identity, history with creativity, and perceptions of content creation as trust builds each day
18 one-hour interviews
Enabled researchers to dig into creators' evolution and creative process while having the opportunity to explore interesting threads that come up
12 in-person ethnographies
Understood creators' lived realities in a way that’s not possible with self-reporting by examining their creative space, tools, and support network
I developed the recruitment criteria after taking into account the business’s strategic context and feasibility. Professional and aspiring professional creators were recruited to inform a potential monetized product, and a range of creators across follower size, platform and genre was recruited to ensure comprehensive representation.
Key Learnings
The new research manager and I guided the agency on analysis and findings through multiple discussions, work sessions, and deck iterations. I translated the agency’s deliverable into a presentation tailored for internal audiences, which aligned better with our stakeholders’ goals and context.
Key findings and recommendations are:
Quicker wins: Segments that value high-quality production are the best near-term opportunity, as Dolby’s existing technology and equity lies in highly polished audiovisuals. However, any products still need to be customized for this audience, as reducing friction during editing is key.
Long-term investment: Meanwhile, segments that prioritize quantity of posts are a longer-term opportunity, as they require development of a new product line that can achieve “good-enough” A/V with as little manual effort as possible.
Finding across creators; narrative was deliberately reframed to showcase internal assumptions vs. evidence-backed insights
Creator segmentation map
Example segment profile
Example segment production journey; showing creative workflow and pain points
Impact
This foundational study reshaped the product and business strategy around the social media video creator opportunity in an editing market estimated to be worth $10B. The product team pivoted their roadmap from unfocused development to a clear direction based on research insights, and began engaging prominent creators who value high A/V polish as strategic partners for new product exploration and development.
It also sparked an innovation workstream to envision a full Dolby product ecosystem for all social media creators, in which I helped facilitate workshops.
Reflection
During the agency selection process, I deliberately chose a partner that had ties to the creative community and employed many creatives themselves. Where I focused on the business's strategic objectives, the agency focused on understanding creators as people. Being intentional about the agency fit resulted in a complementary approach that helped us uncover strong insights for both segmentation and product opportunities, and ultimately shaped how I approach generative research.