Creativity, Market Research, Trends

Discover new music by listening to the radio

By
February 11, 2016
Leave a comment

America turns to the radio as a way to discover new music

Nielsen released their Music 360 report, which found that radio is still the place where the majority of people go to discover new music as opposed to YouTube (48% for radio and 7% for YouTube). Well, those people must be tuning in to other radio stations than I’ve come across that seem to have only twenty songs in their playlist. Or perhaps, Americans are discovering the same twenty songs over and over again.
Anyway, Nielsen discovered that once Americans have discovered that new song, the majority of teens then listen to it on YouTube. iTunes is another hot destination for playing music, running a close third (behind YouTube and the old-fashioned radio). Around half in the survey still listen to their music on CD (remember those?). But interestingly, only 36% bought a physical CD in the previous year compared to 51% who purchased a digital download.

The moral of the story is that people still seem to listen to the radio according to market trends and demographics. And they still seem to discover new music. The results of the survey can be found on the Nielsen website.

Creativity, Design, Market Research, Trends

Studies Prove Uncluttered Websites Perform Better

By
December 3, 2015
Leave a comment

New research from SAY Media and IPG have shown that an ad placed on uncluttered websites without overloading the senses of the user are more useful, trusted and effective. This bit of research also indicates that if multiple adverts are placed on simple, uncluttered websites, they also perform better. Shocking revelation, isn’t it? We’ve been taught time and time again that in order to get your message across, the message must be simple, clear and concise. When decorating, we’ve been taught to simplify the amount of objects in a room so that the eye can focus upon said objects rather than darting about in a confused state. So it comes as no surprise that a simple, clean website with an advert allows the viewer to actually notice the advert, and quite possibly react.

We live in a “short attention span” world, where we are constantly bombarded with messages and want to find the information that we are seeking in as quick and easily a manner as possible. According to comScore, the average time spent on a web page is steadily decreasing, with the average user spending just 40 seconds on a single page.  By using a combination of eye-tracking technology and survey research, the study found that viewers spend twice as long with ads on clean pages that feature ads from just one brand. Uncluttered websites also have higher ad recall.

Ads on uncluttered websites have higher performance rates

Some findings from the research are that uncluttered websites and clean pages enhance site perception as well as ad perception. Those sites that were clean and easy to navigate were perceived as being more useful and trustworthy than similar cluttered sites. Ads that appear on clean sites are also always seen, according to eye-tracking data. Less clutter also means higher recall.

So let this be a lesson to all of you webmasters and advertisers out there. Don’t try to cram too many adverts/messages/objects/etc. into your layouts. Less really does seem to be more.

 

Business, Creativity, Design, Entrepreneurialism, Market Research, Trends

Global Creativity Gap and The State of Creativity

By
September 24, 2015
Leave a comment

The Global Creativity Gap

Adobe released another study, called “State Of Create”, that reveals a global creativity gap exists in the worlds top five global economies (US, Japan, UK, Germany and France). We here at Un_Standard love these types of surveys, because they provide a fascinating glimpse into how we perceive creativity and how we as individuals are living up to our creative potential. This bit of research found that 80% of people feel that unlocking creativity is critical to the economic growth of their city/region/country, and 2/3 feel creativity is valuable to society. In contrast, only 25% feel that they are living up to their own creative potential. A true global creativity gap indeed.

Interviews conducted across the five countries revealed surprising attitudes and beliefs about creativity, providing new insight into the role of creativity in business, education and society.

The study found that there is a major global creativity gap in the workplace, 75% feel that they are under increased pressure to be productive rather than creative. “Don’t think, just do”. This is in stark contrast to the fact that respondents are increasingly expected to think creatively on the job.

And ways to deal with the global creativity gap

Over half of the respondents felt that creativity is being stifled by the educational system, and many feel that creativity is being taken for granted. This is most notable in the US, where 70% felt that creativity is being taken for granted. “One of the myths of creativity is that very few people are really creative,” said Sir Ken Robinson, Ph.D., an internationally recognized leader in the development of education, creativity and innovation. “The truth is that everyone has great capacities but not everyone develops them. One of the problems is that too often our educational systems don’t enable students to develop their natural creative powers. Instead, they promote uniformity and standardization. The result is that we’re draining people of their creative possibilities and, as this study reveals, producing a workforce that’s conditioned to prioritize conformity over creativity.”

So who ranked as the most creative in this global creativity gap survey? Japan tops the list, with the US in second place. Ironically, the Japanese largely don’t see themselves as being creative. Tokyo ranked as the most creative city, with New York coming in at second.

The study in its entirety can be found on the Adobe website.