Bringing wellbeing into
audio experiences
Branding
With Mimi Hearing Technologies
Challenge
Brand diagnosis, strategy and repositioning project with the goal of renewing Mimi’s brand in order to build relevance for the future of the business, the ecosystem and society in general.
Outcome
Creating a new unique brand that reflects the bio-inspired mindset of Mimi’s technology in a meaningful and differentiative way.
context
Mimi is a German tech company specialized in hearing-based audio personalization. Its award-winning and biologically-inspired audio processing technology, knows how well a user hears and personalizes their listening experience on their smartphone and on a large range of other consumer electronic devices, such as headphones, TVs, and more.
But even with their incredible technology, over the last few years Mimi struggled to convey an emotional and cohesive message to the market, while affirming itself as a groundbreaker player in audio personalisation. Mimi was in an urgent need for a new brand positioning and visual universe that reflected his uniqueness and didn’t feel so stagnant and disconnected.
our role
01
Bring together all of the over 70 team elements to help define the future of Mimi.
02
Define a new positioning for the brand.
03
Create a new visual universe that reflected the brand uniqueness and his new positioning.
defining the problem
The complex nature of Mimi as a technology boundary-push company with a heavy focus on research and innovation generates multiple visions across the company. And demanded a deep analysis with everyone’s involvement. From the stakeholders to the product research team.
5
Workshops
18
Internal & external interviews
+60
Answers over two surveys
21
Brand prototype pieces
GOAL
Design a new Mimi brand that puts technology both into products and actionable narratives while becoming more relevant to the market — kickstarting a sustainable differentiation and generating internal alignment.
RESEARCH & FINDINGS
To uncover the right path for Mimi, we looked deep into the digital audio technology market by analyzing 44 players.
“>In the end, we identified up to ten major problems with the overall experience and other insights including:
- There is an unexplored territory for merging health and enjoyment of the experience.
- Accessibility is an interesting but crowded space.
- Mimi has a differentiation factor in health through credibility.
We also identified three main trends that we believe will impact audio technology in the future:
A prominent topic in different spheres of life, accessibility is more than a trend or a consumer demand: it has become a right. Accessibility is expanding as a concept. It’s no longer just about consumers with disabilities but access beyond social class, race, gender or body type.
Wellbeing concerns more than just physical health. It takes into consideration a person as a whole: mind and body. This approach to “health” includes positive mental states, emotions, and moods and identifies the state of happiness to achieve a healthy life.
Hyper-personalization is part of the so-called “hyper-relevance” of the digital era. It’s about using data, AI machine learning, and predictive analytics to understand an audience’s individual behaviors and design experiences that are more relevant to them.
brand positioning
Mimi’s unique angle was found in the industry struggle between health and experience by defining its purpose as to bridge the gap between hearing wellbeing and the best listening experience. Seamlessly integrating it into the consumer brand. Ultimately because “in Mimi, we believe everyone has the right to hear well.”
Brand essence
A simple but distinct idea; a concept in which we whole-heartedly believe, that encapsulates what the brand is all about and inspires everything that we do, from brand to products, from culture to business relationships.
Hearing well is wellbeing.
Positioning
Mimi’s stance before their clients and users are symbiotic halves that materialize Mimi’s essence, inform the brand, and fuel the business.
Mimi’s new descriptor highlights the new positioning while reinforcing it as a tech company.
Design Principles
A set of widely applicable guidelines that inspire Mimians to make the best decisions for the brand, the product design and the overall experience that Mimi offers to everyone as a hearing wellbeing tech.
To offer an inspiring experience for users, we have to focus on developing our technology and translating that innovation into humanized language, visual codes, traits, and interactions that users can interpret, connect with, and trust instinctively. People must feel that there are people behind Mimi’s algorithms.
Our mission to democratize hearing wellbeing means considering everyone’s ability, stage of life, context, and culture. The most efficient way towards inclusivity is a fundamental base design system that allows seamless integration in any device providing a simple, transversally intuitive experience that allows less room for misinterpretation.
We inherently trust the scientific value and benefits we can bring to people’s hearing and assert our leading expertise with conviction. However, we believe the most transformative leaders are welcoming, warm and unimposing. That’s the way we like to express ourselves to users and partners: as equals.
We give shape to the relationship between people and the audio they consume through dynamics and organic movement that responds to the user’s actions and context. The brand and its interfaces feel alive and encourage interaction.
We support each person through the intimate journey that is Hearing Wellbeing. We promote a feeling of individual ownership through purposeful personalization, where the user’s personal needs are cared for and even anticipated. This allows us to generate results, solutions, and an experience that feels unique to everyone.
Design Explorations
We believe everyone has the right to hear well, and that’s why we push to democratize access to healthier listening features and habits. We designed from the hearing capacity of each user to open a whole universe of possibilities. Those possibilities are expanded through a digital platform that personalizes audio experiences for every individual across a wide range of electronic devices.
Hearing ID
The brand’s fundamental visual asset: organic, symmetrical shapes that don’t just represent a hearing ability test. It’s a combination of that plus the sound personalization or any transformation that our features might apply to a user’s profile. Every Hearing ID is a live element as it can change over time and be personalized to better contribute to the user’s hearing wellbeing.
Bio-inspired design
We looked into our hearing biology to create the brand’s most proprietary graphic elements. Using it as a metaphor for the different features that Mimi offers and expressing the bio-inspired nature of Mimi’s technology.
Mimiverse
The brand’s visual richness is inspired by the ever-growing universe of features that Mimi can offer to improve everyone’s hearing wellbeing. We call it the Mimiverse.
