Qobuz
Giving my favorite streamer the brand it deserves.
Qobuz has always felt like the streaming service that truly cares about music. Before Spotify was even in the picture, they were betting on hi-res audio, detailed liner notes, and fair artist compensation. What they need now is a branding system with the same conviction — one built to reach a growing generation of listeners hungry for authenticity in a sea of mood playlists and AI slop.
Qobuz had always been the most mindful platform in the landscape — Hi-res audio, genuine editorial depth, liner notes, a real love of music. The product is exceptional. The ethos is progressive. The brand is less visible.
The first step is Research — identifying the trends in the streaming space. If we can find out how our audience is behaving, we can better target a white space to meet their needs.
Mega Trends
Macro Trends
Micro Trends
Insight
As streaming matures, listeners are splitting into two camps: those who treat music as utility and those who treat it as culture. The major labels are competing for the first group with scale, bundling and algorithmic convenience. The second group, smaller but highly engaged, is underserved: they want quality, context, and wiling to pay premium for a platform that respects music as a human need.
Opportunity
Own the "music as culture" listener.
Position Qobuz not as a Spotify alternative but as a different category entirely, closer to a vinyl collection or a film library than a utility. Serve listeners who want to hear more, know more, and care more.
Positioning
Next, we ask: What values must Qobuz embody to own this position? The persona Qobuz needs to avoid is the “rich, pretentious music snob” and embrace that of a globally curious culture seeker. Music is our passport to the world and our key to each other’s hearts and minds. While the big streamers hurl repackaged playlists of your own music in a never ending feedback loop, Qobuz is an open air music market that says, “Come in! Look around.”
So we create Three Value Sets to act as your framework for every means of brand communication.
Our values inform our Tone of Voice — How do these values show up in how we communicate?
By creating a TOV system, we hit the tone we seek every time and avoid any old-brand style of speaking.
How
Do
Don’t
Next, Qobuz needs a Visual Identity System to embody our values and Tone Of Voice. These are feelings, not buzzwords. Qobuz will uniquely avoid bright and flashy and stand out by being the only platform capturing how music makes us feel.
Current Streaming Visual Landscape
Qobuz Landscape Opportunity
Logo/ Wordmark
A new mark built around the human figure at the center of music. Bold, geometric, and joyful. Calling you to join the fun.
The Result is a comprehensive research and strategy playbook, complete with all pertinent visual applications. Qobuz has always stood on the right side of music and how we discover and share it with each other. It now has an identity to welcome a new generation that is as bright and fun as it is thoughtful and conscientious.
Digital
Suddenly the once strictly functional digital experience comes to life with bold type and vibrant colors.
Before
After
Out Of Home
We lead the the experience with a bold simplicity. A human-first campaign that we can confidently rest our brand values on. Qobuz exists to remind people that music has always been how humans understand each other. Our mission is to preserve and to protect this truth at a time when the streaming industry is doing everything to obfuscate the human touch in our music experience.
Brand Video
Music isn’t an algorithm. It is ancestry. It is a link to people we know and people we’ll never meet, but share a common language. This language will only die if we forget the humanity at the core of our music.
