InSites Blog

MTV Networks and InSites Consulting have looked into the coolness of brands and the impact on the purchasing decisions and brand loyalty among young people for several years now. These cool brands are awarded annually at the Cool Brands Award (initiative of MTV Networks).

Over the past years it has been demonstrated that young people buy twice as many cool brands as non-cool brands and that there is a strong positive correlation between brand loyalty and coolness. For the fifth edition of the Cool Brand Awards, we went a step further. The Coolness study was expanded with two new parameters: emotion and conversation.

The emotion that a particular brand evokes among young people is directly related to the purchase intent. Thus, young people will choose brands that make them happy or give them a good feeling. These brands linger in their memory. The happier a brand makes young people, the more tempted they will be to buy this brand again.

The second parameter focused on is conversation. It turns out that up to 2.4 brand names are cited per conversation between young people. Clichés are seemingly confirmed here, as women talk significantly more than men about chocolate and salty snacks during these conversations, while more men than women talk about mobile phones, mobile phone operators, beer and spirits. The brands that both men and women most frequently discussed during these conversations are Proximus, Nivea and Red Bull – three brands that were running advertising campaigns at the time of the study.

Brands that want to score with the young target group better make sure that their brand is part of the conversations between young people. The coolness of the brand is the decisive factor here as the cooler the brand, the greater the chance that young people will discuss it. Coolness also increases brand loyalty and has a positive impact on the purchase of the brand.

Contrary to popular belief, young people do not solely communicate by way of social media. In fact, 86% of their communication takes place via face-to-face conversations and only 9% takes place online. The importance of these conversations is demonstrated by the fact that a change of opinion takes place in 60% of these cases.

These are the results of the Cool Brand Awards – 2010 edition

• Coolest Mobile (Smart) Phone: iPhone/Apple
• Coolest Mobile Phone Operator: Generation MTV
• Coolest Beer Brand: Jupiler
• Coolest Spirits Brand: Bacardi Mojito
• Coolest Soft Drinks: Coca-Cola
• Coolest Energy Drink: Red Bull
• Coolest Chewing Gum Brand: Mentos
• Coolest Chocolate Brand: M&M′s
• Coolest Mints Brand: Tic Tac
• Coolest Bank: Mine (BNP Paribas Fortis)
• Coolest Female Beauty Care Brand: Nivea
• Coolest Male Beauty Care Brand: Axe
• Coolest Male Razor Brand: Gillette Fusion
• Coolest Female Razor Brand: Gillette Venus
• Coolest Salty Snacks Brand: Lay′s
• Overall Coolest Brand: Coca-Cola

Joeri Van den Bergh (Youth Expert and Managing Partner at InSites Consulting) was awarded Coolest Research Expert at this 2010 edition, a special edition Award for his contribution to the MTV Cool Research. Congratulations Joeri!

In April 2010, Nickelodeon (in cooperation with InSites Consulting) interviewed 400 parents and 400 children between 6 and 12 years. The aim of “Great conversations with small people” was to examine how conversations between children and their parents determine the contents of the shopping list.

Specifically, it aimed to explore how children and their parents communicate with each other in the purchase of products and brands. The decision-making process was mapped out for over thirty different product categories. This yielded interesting insights. It appears that conversations between parents and children are the basis for purchases. Children are increasingly acquiring an advisory role in the purchasing process of the family. Parents do not only encourage this interactivity but also take advantage of it. Children in turn want nothing more than to assist their mom or dad in making the right choice. The end of the Pester Power era – or the negative image of nagging children in the supermarket – therefore seems to be in sight.

Whether or not a brand is frequently seen on television strongly determines the brand choice of children (in 55 % of cases). The “coolness” of a brand (36 %) and the appreciation by parents (30 %) are ranked second and third place when it comes to brand choice of the children. Parents also have a clear preference for certain brands when buying for their children. This preference is mainly determined by own use (55 %) and the fact that their son or daughter has asked for a brand (49 %). Finally, nostalgia towards their own childhood plays a major role (40 %).

In three out of four cases it is the children themselves who initiate conversations. The conversations usually involve asking parents to continue buying the same brands or products (in 75 % of cases). In contrast, in 16 % of the conversations, children convince their parents to try out a brand or product for the first time. It is important here that children articulate their message in a positive manner. Children also discuss brands among themselves. Game consoles are a favorite topic, followed by theme parks, toys and mobile phones. The positive nature of the conversations is striking here as well. According to the survey, this makes children very efficient ‘brand ambassadors’. Along with affluence, the conversations between parents and children have reinforced the participation of children in the purchasing process.

For traditional categories such as toys, shoes, clothing and gaming consoles, parents indicate that children help choose in nine out of ten cases. The influence of children on the purchasing process in less traditional categories was examined as well. For instance, parents indicate that eight out of ten times, children have a say in the holiday destination and that three out of ten kids help decide on a new car. The age of the children appears to play a significant role. For example, slightly older children – from nine to twelve – leave a much clearer mark when it comes to deciding on the brand choice of a computer, stereo, car, bank account or a subscription for digital television than younger children – from six to eight years.

On average, children come along on one in every two shopping trips. Only 2 % of children never come along. For parents, shopping together has primarily a social function: the children themselves enjoy it, it’s more fun than shopping alone or it’s a chance to spend time together. Practical reasons, including lack of a babysitter, also occasionally determine whether parents and children shop together. Such a joint shopping trip is especially useful for parents to immediately gauge the opinions of, and obtain confirmation by, their children during the shopping trip. Children also love assisting their mom and dad in making the right choice. It is therefore unsurprising that, when out shopping, children codetermine which products end up in the shopping trolley. One in two parents ask their children what products they prefer. Half of the parents also indicate that they spend more time in the shop when they are accompanied by their children and therefore make more purchases than originally planned. Half of the surveyed parents tend to buy more expensive brands when asked to do so by their children.

Over the month of April 2010, Flemish parents and Flemish children were questioned about the playing frequency within the overall leisure activities of 8-12 year olds, and about the purchase and use of toys. Karrewiet of Ketnet, Radio 2 and the Toy Museum endeavored to find answers to these questions in cooperation with InSites Consulting.

We will share some 2010 playing trends with you:

• Flemish 8-12 year olds spend more than 3 hours per day behind a screen. This is not surprising, since approximately 30% have a game console in their own room, 25% an own television and 20% a computer.
• Game consoles and particularly Nintendo DS are the most popular toys. Online games are also seeing strong growth.
• Digital play is therefore most popular, though classics such as LEGO (mainly popular among boys) and handicrafts (mainly popular among girls) are also a mainstay. Our children are not passive, for cycling and trampolining are also very popular.
• 25% of children usually play alone. One in three children feel their parents should make more time to play with them.
• Traditional games such as tag and football rule at the playground. If children could choose, they would like to have a trampoline at school. The new craze for trading games such as Bakugan is banned in half of Flemish schools.
• Annually, parents spend on average € 245.00 per child on toys and are primarily guided in their choice by ‘the joy of the child ‘. Their own best memories are of LEGO.
• Parents mainly want their children to move and be creative. Learning to cooperate is the most important to them when their child plays with others. The competitive spirit – which clearly exists among children – is not at all emphasized by parents. Parents generally prefer playing UNO, Monopoly or a puzzle with their children.

Toys that 8-12 year olds play with most often

1. Nintendo DS/Dsi/DsiXL
2. Bicycles/tricycles/scooters
3. Computer/PC games
4. Painting and drawing
5. Nintendo Wii
6. Trampoline
7. LEGO
8. Online games/surfing
9. Balls
10. Sony PlayStation
11. Roller skates, inline skating, skateboard
12. UNO
13. Miniature figures and animals
14. Monopoly
15. Swimming pool

InSites Consulting has been nominated for the AMMA Best Media Research Award 2010 with our Cool Brands Research: ‘Cool today, gone tomorrow‘.

In collaboration with MTV Networks Belgium, InSites polled the views of 1.500 young Belgians between the ages of 13 and 29. The findings from this survey not only identified the coolest brand but it was also able to demonstrate a direct link between the coolest factor of a brand, on the one hand, and the brand loyalty of young people towards this brand, on the other.

Find out more about the research results here or visit the AMMA Awards website to check the other nominees.

Last week I visited the MRS conference on children research in London. Apart from interesting chats with the legendary smart cabbies (‘you know what MTV should do to cope with the YouTube competition, mate …’), I was quite enthusiastic about the following three contributions.

Claudio Franco of Dubit and Julie Adair, director online operations of Disney Europe brought a story on trends in online entertainment for kids. On UK TV screens Disney channel is head on competition with cbbc and Nickelodeon for the age group 7-14. In this age group 62% watches videos on the internet, 60% plays games with their favorite TV characters and 40% went to websites after on-air calls for action. Where online gaming is the absolute killer entertainment application for 7-10 year olds (with around 90% actively fond of gaming on the web), the interest for games start to decline slightly when they get 11 in favor of online videos, chatting and social network sites. Especially at the age of 13 SNSs like Facebook and online chatting are the main online activities.

These figures are also reflected in the most popular games in the UK. Under 11 cbbc, Cartoon Network, and Disney’s Club Penguin are the most popular game sites, above 11 Facebook and SNS games (like FarmVille, CaféWorld, Stardoll) and Miniclip (casual games) are more popular than virtual worlds like Club Penguin. Disney is active in different gaming types. In casual games they offer up to 250 games in the Disney website catalogue (adding 50 new ones a year) including top titles such as Cars, Up, Bolt and Mickey. They also own ToonTown, The World of Cars, Club Penguin and (bright new, for girls and related to Tinkerbell) Pixie Hollow. Almost 11% of all kids are paying for monthly gaming subscriptions (Club Penguin for instance has a monthly price of €4.95), 13% buys virtual goods (add-ons like furniture, clothes, …). Those who pay, spend up to £5 per month. The biggest spenders in both categories are 11-12 year olds.

An interesting topic that is heavily under researched in kids marketing is dad’s role in the family. Pete Maginn, head of child & youth at Illuminas shared his work on this subject (a combination of in-home qualitative interviews with dads as well as online quantitative) in his cheerful presentation. Most dads have a multi-faceted role in the household. They are an economic platform for family life (the breadwinner), they bring fun and a rough and tumble element in kids’ lives, help to care for kids (e.g. bedtime stories) and at the same time represent the strong, male role model. Dads see themselves as instillers of morals and also as a rational, calming presence (Mr. Peacekeeper). One dad’s citation referring to this role was quite striking: “Don’t get me wrong, I would lay down my life for my children but unlike my wife I might consider if there was another option first…”

The product categories in which dad’s role in purchase decision making is higher than mum’s are still explained by traditional gender roles: financial products, family cars, electronics and mobile phones compared to clothes & shoes, the area where mum’s opinion and choice is dominant. On the other hand today dad’s involvement has increased in certain areas leading to joint decision making in family holidays, entertainment, eating out, nurseries and schools, toys and games and food and groceries.

Carrick James (CJMR) and Marie Laver (formerly insight and strategy manager of Children’s and Licensing BBC) told a story about the evolution of licensed characters. The UK market of licensed toys has been booming in the last 10 years. Today more than £1 of every £3 is spent on licensed toys (compared to less than £1 in every 5£ 10 years ago). License lifecycles vary heavily, with typical “flash in the pan” characters such as Ninja Turtles, Ghostbusters, Teletubbies which were highly successful for single year sales figures compared to slowly growing features such as Thomas and friends or the regularly rebirth of evergreen characters such as Winnie The Pooh and Bob The Builder. Interesting elements of the ones that have survived illustrate what is required to build a longer lasting character.

Both Thomas (the blue train) and Bob the Builder were acquired by HIT in 2004 and underwent a re-birth treatment including new CGI animations, digital formats, direct to video features, and new themes/music. Moreover the brand immersion was expanded to theme parks for Thomas in the UK and the US and 4D movies of Bob the Builder at Legoland. Next to this, HIT initialized branded events such as Bob’s educational programmes in schools and a railway ‘Day Out with Thomas’. The latter is quite important since James & Laver demonstrated that children today access an average number of around 3 touchpoints (TV, DVD, magazines, cinema, toys, clothes, food & drinks, online games, …) when engaging with their favorite characters. Future trends in licensing ended the presentation. Reverse vertical integration: e.g. toy brands such as Transformers now producing movies. Secondly, a decrease in second party licensing especially in food as a result of governmental and parental pressures e.g. McDonald’s moving from using licenses as Happy Meal toys to creating their own Fairies & Dragons characters of which they own total control. And thirdly an increase in third party collaborations between two equally strong brands, e.g. Star Wars and Lego.

This Wednesday ESOMAR will showcase the diversity and talent within the market research industry at the ‘Best of ESOMAR’ event in Delft (NL). The program hosts an agenda of international speakers and topics ranging from brand authenticity and co-creation to healthcare and innovation.

Joeri Van den Bergh, Managing Partner InSites Consulting is one of the speakers. He will be presenting Even better than the real thing, understanding generation Y’s definition of ‘authenticity’ for the Levi’s brand, a re-run of his session at the ESOMAR Qualitative Congress last year.

The event is open to everyone active in the Market Research Industry. Contact customer.service@esomar.org to confirm your place.

The ESOMAR Qualitative conference is always a quite thrilling experience. This year’s edition welcomed 130 researchers from all over the world in a hot Marrakech (28-30 degrees Celsius in November… a dream for Middle-Europeans like me) and they had one thing in common: they ARE great listeners.

Next to that, they seem more creative than the average quant researchers. It was actually the first conference where I saw a peer researcher working for Nielsen Australia dancing multiple times on stage during her presentation, remembering that she wanted to be a Bollywood movie star in her child years. It was also the first time ever I have met the CEO of a UK based research agency looking like a rock star: long hair cut, cool shirt and glittering earring. So ESOMAR Qualitative is about to become the new” X-Factor”, “I bet you can dance” or “Idols” for the research society. Which is good really, because it is our strategic intent too, to make market research sexier after all.

I was presenting our Even Better than the Real Thing paper on authenticity and Generation Y together with the Consumer Insight Manager of Levi’s Europe, Dirk Van Kemseke. And we proudly came back from Marrakech with a nomination for the ESOMAR Excellence Award. Click here for a conference review.

On Monday Joeri Van den Bergh, Director Kids & Youth Research and Managing Partner at InSites Consulting presented at the ESOMAR Qualitative Research Congress. His paper on authenticity just got nominated for Best Paper at this ESOMAR Congress.

Download Even better than the real thing – Understanding generation Y’s definition of ‘authenticity’ for the Levi’s brand.

On 29 October the game console Wii of Nintendo won the MTV Networks Sticky Award. The Award, for the coolest Dutch brand was rewarded at the MTV Networks event Identity in the MTV Studio in Amsterdam (NL). 1200 youngsters were questioned in the research InSites Consulting conducted in cooperation with MTV Networks, the youngsters were asked which brand they perceived as ‘cool’. Wii of Nintendo was ranked first on every aspect, Coca-Cola honorably second.

Check out the full press release online or contact Joeri Van den Bergh, Director Youth Research for more information.

Joeri Van den Bergh, InSites Consulting and Dirk Van Kemseke, Levi Strauss Europe will be presenting at the ESOMAR Qualitative Conference. This year’s edition takes place in Marrakesh in November 2009.

Understanding generation Y’s definition of ‘authenticity’ for the Levi’s brand.

The classic way of looking at the concept of ‘brand authenticity’ is defined by components such as: origin, history and heritage of a brand. Levi Strauss, known as the inventor of the denim jeans with its Levi’s 501 model positioned as the ultimate original jeans, wanted to find out modern interpretations of authenticity. More specifically they doubted the relevance of their brand heritage and history to the target group of young consumers (13-29 year olds) aka the brand and marketing savvy Generation Y.

In this interactive presentation (based on online quantitative research with youngsters in Belgium and the Netherlands) a new definition of authenticity is constructed. Since youngsters are the consumers (and thus market research participants) of tomorrow, the presenters will also illustrate how this new definition affects the way market researchers will have to interact with this generation.

Find out more about the full program and register online.