Sony Music - Feathers App

OVERVIEW

Background 

Peder Elias, a distinctive Nordic artist signed with Sony Music, has built a significant fan base in Asia, particularly in South Korea. Despite his huge popularity, his fan engagement remains unofficial and fragmented. Also Peder has a big difficulty connecting to his audience.

With his authentic storytelling and emotional musical style that diverges from typical K-pop trends, there is a clear opportunity to create a dedicated platform that officially connects his global audience.   

We were tasked to:

Establish a more effective connetcion and engagment bettween Peder and his audience and make the success in Korea, a global one.

Webflow

Porduct Preview

Bonfire Section

Main Screen

Cabin Section

Research

Secondary Research

We researched upon:

Peder’s: Brand archetype, experience traits, expression code and content strategy as well as his competion’s.
Korea’s music preferences, their fandom instances, Sweden’s music appeal and the effect it has on its audiences.
Korea’s music platforms, their features and services, as well as Sony music’s applications.

RESEARCH

Interviews , Questionnaires & Insights

We conducted 6 in-depth interviews with Korean fans, aged from 22 to 28.

Research Insights

Through those interviews two key insights were revealed:

1) Fans seek an official channel that offers legitimacy and community recognition.  

This phenomenon is rooted in groupism where individuals find meaning through belonging.

Since Peder’s content is separated on a pleathora of different platforms, his fans are scattered as a result.

Elias with his fans.

Provide Acknowledgement: Music labels are the ones that drive fan engagement: host events, launch fan merch and stay closely connected with fans.
Provide Space & Belonging: In Korea, official fan platforms like Daum Cafe, Weverse & LYSN have long given fans a sense of legitimacy.

2) Peder’s music gives Korean fans an emotional escape. His songs feel like a break from daily stress.

In Korean music culture, labels shape the artist's branding to fit fandoms, but Peder’s authenticity sets him apart. His unique Nordic warmth and heartfelt music offer more than just entertainment, they provide an emotional refuge.

DEVELOPMENT

Ideation

Based on these insights, we conceptualized Feathers – Peder’s Fan World App.  

The app is designed to blend structured community engagement with personalized fan experiences.

The structure of Feathers App.

The intention is to create a unique experience for the user, and open a window to Elia's world.

In Korea, applications have the tendency to provide as many features as possible instead of providing a single-use application. Part of the focus was to provide as many tools needed to create a community space while being able to get in touch with Elia's career, hobbies lifestyle and feelings.

Apart from Korea's unique application features, we focused on providing the user with an immersive 3d world inspired by the Nordic lifestyle to escape into, full of references from Elia's lyrics.

DEVELOPMENT

Stakeholder Feedback

We shared our low-fidelity prototype with Elia’s team and interviewees to gather candid feedback on the design. Their insights identified key issues in navigation and overall clarity to providing us with valuable suggestions on areas needing improvement, such as:

Peder's wall of content was adjusted and certain features were removed in order to reduce the invested time needed from Elias.
Subscription system added: We found out that for Korean fans, the lack of a subscription system meant lack of officiality, a core need of Peder's fandom.

Peder's team meeting.

This feedback was instrumental in guiding our iterative process to refine the solution, align with Sony Music's business goals and better meet user needs.

DEVELOPMENT

High-Fidelity Prototyping

Feathers is a mobile-first platform built to align with Korea’s dynamic digital ecosystem. Our design balances the need for officiality providing a structured and recognized community, with the individualistic, authentic connection fans have with Peder’s music.

High definition App Prototype

The website's features:

Official Community Chat & Events: A dedicated space for fans to interact and participate in both official and community-driven events.
Exclusive Content: Access to Peder’s Diary and livestreams for real-time updates.
Personalized Profiles & Badge Collection: Fans can showcase their support and track their engagement with unique digital badges.
Localized Features: Tailored experiences that resonate with South Korean fan culture while maintaining Peder’s authentic identity.

conclusion

The Value

The benefits:

Korea is a mobile-first culture.
Strong app-centric entertainment ecosystem.
Direct reach with push notification & instant updates.
Data and CRM ownership.
Apps enable better revenue models.

The challenges:

High Cost of App Development

Considerations:  
Gather / manage valuable data  
Customize features over time  
Drive greater returns

Ensure Fan’s App Engagement

Considerations:  
Peder’s engagement during the initial phase is important as this will drive fan’s engagement and show officiality until the community becomes a self-sustained ecosystem.

conclusion

Personal Contributions

I contributed on the research, strategy and designed the 3D enviroment along with Vicram V and the high-fidelity prototypes.

Low fidelity prototype.

Special thanks to Christin Malen Andreassen, Teodoro Johansson for their guidance, Peder’s fans for their valuable feedback and enthusiastic cooperation and Peder Elias for his support through the whole project.
We also appreciate the input from our peers and mentors, which significantly contributed to the success of this project.