It's Hip To Be Square: Brand Appeal Among Young Adults

Brand Appeal Among Young Adults

MAY 19, 2009

It’s hip to be square.

If you want your brand to be associated with young people, then image isn’t everything, at least not according to a study by MTV Networks, the long-time arbiter of cool—and what’s hot—among young audiences.

For the study, Internet users ages 12 to 24 in five countries—Germany, India, Japan, the UK and the US—were surveyed.

According to respondents ages 18 to 24, the most popular features of a brand were good quality, trustworthiness and workability—three traits not usually associated with the stereotypical image of free-wheeling youth.

Less important were image, history and the brand’s popularity. The approval of friends was at the bottom of the list.

How the brands were discovered was also important.

Sixty-five percent of the teens and young adults surveyed felt seeing a brand on TV created a sense of quality, though how much varied from country to country. Seventy-seven percent of respondents in India thought TV equaled brand quality, followed by residents of the UK, US, Japan and Germany.

In each country, a majority of respondents reported that the Internet makes choosing brands easier.

The data highlights the “need to engage in comprehensive 360-degree campaigns,” said Jules Robinson of Viacom Brand Solutions International.

In other words, marketers need to advertise brands on both TV and the Internet. Not exactly new news, but it never hurts to reinforce the thought.

Note: Respondents in India are not representative of the country’s general population.