Converse tops Nike as Cooler Brand; 57 percent say PCs are Cooler than Macs
Pangea Media, the leader in online quizzes and quiz technology, has released the results of its latest "Pangea Pulse," which tracked the attitudes and preferences of its tween and teen users towards brands. The survey found 77 percent of teens and tweens rely on friends to find out cool new brands, followed by seeing those brands in the store (71 percent) or on a TV commercial (51 percent).*
When asked how they typically find out about new brands online, 27 percent said they see an ad when using a search engine and 24 percent said they learn about new brands on the social networking sites Facebook or MySpace. When asked to cite which social networking site had the "coolest" information about new products or brands, 46 percent said neither, followed by 23 percent who said MySpace. Accordingly, most teens and tweens (71 percent) responded that they are not "fans" of a brand on a social networking site.
With regard to purchasing decisions, 57 percent would spend more money on a particular product because they liked that brand. Most teens and tweens (86 percent) believe that people will buy or use a specific product because it is mentioned on TV. When asked if they think clothes with brand logos are better, 65 percent said they do not believe that clothes with brand logos are better.
Brand Preferences When asked to identify their preferred athletic brand, teens and tweens overwhelmingly prefer Converse (53 percent) to Nike (26 percent), Adidas (eight percent) and Puma (eight percent). Reebok and K-Swiss each garnered two percent of the votes.
With regard to technology, most respondents identified more with PCs (57 percent) than Macs (43 percent), and overwhelmingly prefer the Google brand (73 percent) to Yahoo! (22 percent) and Bing (five percent). Few teens and tweens listen to music on a Zune-91 percent of respondents said the iPod is cooler. Similarly, teens and tweens prefer YouTube (94 percent) over other video services.
In response to questions about food brands, 58 percent chose Coke over Pepsi (42 percent) and Starbucks (62 percent) over Dunkin Donuts (29 percent), with Tim Horton's, Caribou Coffee, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and Peets Coffee sharing the remaining nine percent of the votes. When it comes to fast food, teens and tweens prefer McDonald's (26 percent). However, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut each received 23 percent of the votes, with Burger King and Wendy's each receiving 14 percent of the votes.
Respondents left more than 200 comments elaborating on their opinions regarding specific brands and products.
Methodology The results included in this latest Pangea Pulse were taken from two surveys: "How Do You Know What's Cool?" and "Which is Cooler?," which received over 2,200 and 2,800 responses, respectively.
*(Totals that exceed 100 percent are due to the ability to choose multiple responses.)