Many thanks to the help from undergraduate students at my class in Introduction to International Business in Fall 2024, I got the chance to do the two waves of pilot studies in commercial music industry.

#1 - First Round - Open Question Surveys

I created survey forms using Google Form, making their answers totally anonymous.

There are only two short questions:

1. Favorite music (a link to YouTube will be appreciated)
2. Favorite movie/TV series

I received 16 answers out of 21 students. Honestly speaking, their answers are quite interesting, and even out of my expectation. They are pretty diverse and these students mentioned a lot of genres and types that I had never heard of. I was so excited to know that this area is so colorful, but I did have to cram a lot for being ready to delve into this field.

#2 - Second Round - Listen to 26 30-seconds clips and fill the form in class

There are 4 questions for each clip. At the start of the survey, I showed them the privacy statement, ensuring their answers would never be disseminated to others at the individual level. Their answers may be shown to others only at the aggregation form.

1.  Do you like this clip? (Likert question: 1 - Does not like at all, 7 - Very Much)
2.  Have you ever heard of this song before? (Y/N)
3.  Compared with last clip, to what extent do you like this one? (Likert question: 1 - Does not like at all, 7 - Very Much)
4.  Any quick comments/thoughts about this clip?

Preliminary results resonate with my initial hypothesis: language and ethnicity will be a barrier to the success of the music, but enough innovation/uniqueness can conquer this disadvantage.

I am still working on their answers and more results will be available some time later (but I cannot guarantee when :) ).

Below are those 26 30-seconds clips used in the class. After each clip, they have 30 seconds to fill the survey form.