Which MP3 player would you like: a Zune, a Zen or an iPod?

When we do research studies at BZ Media, we often offer an incentive to people who take part in the study. If they choose, they may be entered into a drawing for a small prize.

We’ve offered several prizes, including gift cards, but the one that seems to interest the most people is an iPod. (Some people do not wish to enter the drawing, perhaps because they work for someplace where this prohibited, such as the military or the government.)

I’ve lost track of how many iPods we’ve given away.

With that in mind, we wondered: is the iPod still a great prize? On our most recent BZ Research study, we gave respondents a choice, written as follows:

Would you like to be entered into a drawing to win a 4GB Microsoft Zune (US$149 retail value), a 4GB Apple iPod nano (US$149 value), or a 4GB Creative Zen V+ (US$179 value)?

We chose those particular models so as to ensure we picked relatively comparable prizes, in terms of price and specifications.

To make a long story short, the results we as follows:

Yes, I want the iPod: 51.7%
Yes, I want the Zen: 20.6%
Yes, I want the Zune: 15.5%
No, thank you: 12.5%

Looking at it another way, of those who said that they’d like to enter the drawing, the results were:

Yes, I want the iPod: 58.8%
Yes, I want the Zen: 23.5%
Yes, I want the Zune: 17.7%

Clearly, the iPod was the most popular prize.

To validate the responses, we put a poll up on SDTimes.com last week, asking people, “If you could choose to receive one of these three MP3 music players as a gift, which would you want?” The results were:

4GB Apple iPod nano: 68%
4GB Microsoft Zune: 16%
4GB Creative Zen V+: 15%

The answers were even more heavily weighted in terms of the iPod, with the Zune and Zen coming in nearly neck and neck — a statistical tie. Still, the answer is clear: Most people in our sample demographic – software development managers – want iPods, not the alternatives.