Resonate Health

The situation

James Whittaker had run the major players in audiology across Asia Pacific and had a vision to change how people access hearing healthcare. Everyone who needs hearing augmentation should be using the best hearing aids, yet at around $10,000 a pair they are out of reach for most people. His startup, Resonate Health, gives people top-of-the-line hearing aids for $90 a month, with free upgrades, servicing and support, fitted in one appointment, and returnable at any time. With funding secured to open the first studios, he asked us for the go-to-market strategy.

What we were asked to do

Build the go-to-market campaign for the subscription. We did not hear go-to-market and jump to advertising. We set out to understand the customers and the market well enough to see how the category could be disrupted at scale, and asked what the offer should really be.

What we did

We analysed the market and spoke to real people, synthesised what we found, and formed a hypothesis. Three things stood out. Audiology as practised was a free hearing test used to sell hearing aids, and we felt it should be about health. Most people do not want hearing aids until things get bad, so no campaign would create demand in the age groups Resonate wanted to reach. And a subscription alone was not enough to build a leading brand on. So we matched creative territories to audiences and designed three possible businesses: a traditional one that beat the incumbents at their own game, an evolutionary one that served people the incumbents ignored, and a revolutionary one that reframed hearing devices as the best headphones you can buy. The evolutionary design won. We invented the concept for Ear360, a paid, proactive ear and hearing health profile, sold at $99 in a market that gives hearing tests away, and designed to bring new audiences in and feed the subscription. Resonate's lead audiologist then designed it as a ten-point profile. We built the brand architecture around healthy ears and hearing for life, the identity, the communications, the studio designs, the website and the financial model, and worked with Resonate and its partners to launch. In 2026 Resonate brought us back. We co-authored its technology strategy, set up its technology governance, led the process to hire its first technology lead, and then worked with the leadership team on Resonate 2030: the strategy, a prioritised portfolio with named owners and Board measures, and the roadmap its team is now delivering.

The results

• 01Six studios at launch, 20 by mid 2024, more than 30 across New Zealand by 2026.
• 02Ear360 is central to Resonate's commercial strategy and to its ability to recruit leading audiologists.
• 03A brand built on ear and hearing health for life, a position the incumbents cannot take while they sell hearing aids.
• 04Resonate 2030: a strategy, a prioritised portfolio with named owners and a scorecard of Board key results, handed to the leadership team.