Pre-release pilot study of Al Jeel Al Jadeed: results

On September 1, an email was sent out to a small group of people containing the mp3 file of the finished new Arabic song ‘Al Jeel Al Jadeed’. The next day, an opportunity was given to 50 volunteers to test-drive the song on their mp3-players before its release, after answering a few survey questions. This little article contains an analysis of the response to the song.

First of all, I wish to thank all who volunteered to get the mp3. Thank you for being interested, and thank you for filling out the survey!

The purpose of the pilot study was to gauge how my new sound is received, and to help steer the level and method of release when the song is launched to the public. In this sense, it has been successful. It’s the first time I have undertaken such a pilot study for such a purpose, but having done this I feel like it’s a very efficient, easy and helpful method.

Let’s have a look at the results first, and then I will share my conclusion with you at the end. It’s perhaps a bit of a long read, but I guess that’s how it goes with studies and interpretations of results. However, I think the results are quite interesting, so please bear with me!

METHOD

People included in the study were 17 people who received the initial email, 5 people who requested the song through Facebook and had it mailed to them, and 42 people who filled out the form to obtain the song. The form was filled out 50 times as planned, but 8 were excluded due to incomplete or double entries. In total, the survey therefore includes 64 people. The form fed the results automatically into a database that I had constructed on my own server, while this database was later completed with the data of the people who received my song by email.

DEMOGRAPHICS AND SURVEY RESULTS

Note: clicking on the pie-chart images will give you an enlarged view of the graph.

Gender distribution was 25 males, and 39 females (39.1 % and 60.9 % respectively).

Regions:

Middle East/North Africa: 26.6 %
Europe: 48.4 %
North America: 15.6 %
Other: 9.4 %

Familiarity with songs of Doc Jazz:

None: 17.2 %
Some: 29.7 %
Quite familiar: 53.1 %

Knowledge of Arabic:

None/barely: 25 %
Limited: 23.4 %
Good: 51.6 %

Following Doc Jazz on:

Twtiter: 29.7 %
Facebook: 20.3 %
Website: 3.1 %
Two or more of the above: 42.2 %
None of the above: 4.7 %

RESPONSE ANALYSIS

In 37.5 % it remained uncertain whether the song had reached the recipient. In 62.5 % reception of the song was confirmed.

No response was given by 45.3 % of the recipients, while 54.7 % responded spontaneously through:

Email: 7.8 %
Facebook: 9.4 %
Twitter: 12.5 %

In 25 % of the cases, the response was personal, through Whatsapp or other direct means of communication.

Response rating

Of course, the most central part of the survey centered around the response itself. This rating, which was a written reaction in all of the cases where a response was received, was classified as follows:

5: very enthusiastic
4: positive
3: neutral
2: negative
1: very negative

Only one negative response (2) was received. All other responses where either a 4 (12.5 %) or a 5 (42.2 %).

In the above percentages, it must be clarified that all those who did not give any response, were classed as 2. This was done because it was assumed that those who refrained from responding had a feeling about the song that varied from neutral (3) to very negative (1).

This assumption is a somewhat dodgy one, considering that people’s response behavior cannot reliably be predicted in this way. People might feel positive about the song, and just not had time or opportunity to send a response. It was always made clear that a response was not mandatory. However, it is also thinkable that this group contains people who felt it to be impolite or unfriendly to send a negative opinion about the song and preferred to remain silent about it. 

Another important point to be noted in this regard, is that in 37.5 % of the cases, it was unclear whether recipients had received the song at all. There is therefore also a possibility that non-responders largely did not receive the song*. This is why it is important to separate these categories, and present both options in the results.

(* note added Sept 7.: further crosstab analysis corroborated this expectation, since 79 % of non-responders came from the category of those in whom there was no confirmed reception, and only 15 % of those in whom reception was confirmed failed to respond).

An email was sent, and calls were issued through Twitter and Facebook, for people to check their junk mail folders, and notify whether they were able or unable to receive the song. This resulted in some people still hearing the song after all. All these corrections are already reflected in the database.

If we include the non-responders as having scored 2 (negative) to the song, it still remains a fact that 54.7 % gave a positive (4) or very positive (5) score. This would result in an average rating of  3.5. In this worst case scenario, therefore, the song rating still remains on the positive side.

However: when excluding the non-responders, a best-case scenario, the average rating is  4.7, which is a highly positive rating.

The true score must therefore be somewhere in-between. With all these attempts to eliminate the influence of negative as well as positive bias of the results, this is as close as we can get. I must say, this is a fantastic result!

CONCLUSIONS & PLANS

All in all, I must conclude that Al Jeel Al Jadeed was received very positively! I am of course delighted by this, since it is a challenge to present the audience with a somewhat new sound and concept, and I feel that this pilot study has helped me get a feeling of whether I should continue in this new direction or not. I feel supported by these data to continue on this path. I am very grateful for this positive boost that I have received from those who have heard the song. It will definitely help me in my decision-making, and I will share a bit of that with you now.

Had the results of this pilot study been negative, I would have simply uploaded the song to my song repository on Soundlick, with a little advertising here and there. Now that I feel the results are quite positive, however, I feel that this song deserves a Youtube release with a music video, which is a more powerful way of presenting a new song. I have already made plans in this direction, but it is too early to disclose the details yet. Stay tuned!

Another announcement i wish to make, is that the song ‘Al Jeel Al Jadeed’ is the first song of a new album I am working on, which is going to be an album that has entirely Arabic lyrics. It will be my first album in this fashion, and I am excited about working on it. I hope to be able to have it ready by the end of the summer of 2014, in shaa Allah.

For the time being, first efforts will now go into the Youtube release of ‘Al Jeel Al Jadeed’. I think you may be surprised yet, at how this release will be handled. I hope you are curious about it, looking forward to it, and that you will support me in making the launch of it into a success. Again, thank you very much, and stay in touch!

Doc Jazz