No Context

Read this article and you'll be struck with a notable finding (click here).

• There is no context here. "Pureplay decreased by 51%". "Share of Ear?"

The article would have lead you to believe that people are listening to Spotify half as much as in the past. Actual company data from Spotify shows revenue growth that is essentially unfettered.

In order for survey data to be accurate, a few things "could" have happened.

1. The audience would have to grow about 4x as fast to compensate for a 51% reduction in "share of ear" whatever that metric means.
2. The data Spotify shares publicly (above) is misleading.

This link suggests that Spotify share of market is down about 3% over the past five years (click here).

When an industry struggles to keep their incumbent status, all sorts of interesting survey results are released. I spoke at a conference five years ago sharing data I'd observe across a trillion dollars in purchase transactions. The next speaker addressed the audience and informed the audience that he was about to reveal "the truth" because of a survey of 300 households. His version of "the truth"? Print was making a comeback.

Anytime your industry trade journalists publish articles loaded with percentages based on obscure metrics like "share of ear", run, don't walk from the "research".

I recall reading an article in a trade journal suggesting that "more and more brands are seeing the value of print". What does that mean? Use of print as a marketing tool is down about 80% since 2008, +/-. How could "more and more" possibly be true?

P.S.: This summarization of radio metrics could well be correct - and while optimistic, it isn't anywhere close to the survey results mentioned above (click here).