InSites Blog

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.

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.

16th June 2009 – MTV Networks presented for the fourth year in a row the awards for the coolest brands, chosen by young people.

Last April InSites Consulting (in collaboration with MTV Networks) 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 brands 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. Over four years ago MTV Networks and InSites Consulting launched their investigation into the coolness of brands. This annual presentation of the Cool Brands Awards was accompagnied by a more in-depth investigation into coolness. The idea was to find an answer to the question of what young people exactly mean by cool. It was found that the coolness of a brand is determined by three different parameters: originality, attractiveness and popularity. In 2008 the ‘Cool Sneaking Formula‘ was launched or how to represent coolness in figures. Cool = 22% originality + 23% popularity + 55% attractiveness. This not only demonstrates that brands that want to be cool score pretty high on all three parameters, but also that in certain sectors some parameters seem to weigh heavier.

Cool today, gone tomorrow?

This year, we went a step further by looking for the link between cool brands and the brand loyalty of young people towards a particular brand. Research has shown that, as far as young people are concerned, there is not only a strong link between coolness and brand loyalty in the short term but also in the long term. In the short term, no less than 73% of all brand loyalty is about the coolness of the brand. In the long term, the coolness of a brand also appears to have an influence on its market share. Young people today buy twice as many cool brands than uncool brands, while the future purchase intention of these brands is no less than three times as high. This is definitely an incentive for all youth marketers to communicate the coolness of their brand to young people as best as they can. Anyone who manages to convince young people of the coolness of their brand will be guaranteed of a long-term relationship of the target group with their brand. Important to remember: faking the coolness is the last thing you should do and will immediately be punished by the people you are targetting.

Who’s cool, who’s not?

• Overall Coolest Brand: Coca-Cola
• Coolest Mobile Phone Brand: iPhone
• Coolest Soft Drinks Brand: Coca-Cola
• Coolest Mint Brand: Mentos
• Coolest Denim Brand: Replay
• Coolest Bank: Axion (Dexia)
• Coolest Game Console Brand: Wii
• Coolest Ready Made Meals Brand: Dr. Oetker
• Coolest Woman Beauty Care Brand: Nivea
• Coolest Men Beauty Care Brand: Axe

For more information, contact Joeri Van den Bergh (Joeri.vandenbergh@insites.eu)

Joeri Van den Bergh, Director of InSites Consulting ON SNEAKERS, which is the research agency’s children and youth department, attended the MRS Youth Research 2009 conference in London. Even though Joeri caught an unspeakably early Eurostar train that morning, there were three contributions that managed to keep him awake.

The conference was given the theme “Get Closer, Engage and Communicate” and the setting – a few round tables – was considerably more intimate than at many other conferences, although that was probably due to the poor turnout.

Douglas Dunn, Managing Director at Tuned In Research, a recently established agency focusing on young people and electronic sectors, immediately dispelled a number of popular myths about youngsters:

- “Young people want everything for free”:
This is definitely true on the internet, says Dunn, but in the real world, people pay for things. Young people still spend a lot of money on experiences and activities, such as adventure trips or beach and party holidays. Other examples are material things that are an integrated part of their looks (clothing) or allow physical connections with their peers (festivals and concerts). Young people also put their hands in their pockets for “technology enablers” (MP3 players, mobile phones, games consoles, …) that allow them to lead their online lives.

- “It is very difficult for brands to communicate with young people”:
According to Douglas Dunn, advertisers have to make an extra effort in order to connect with the young people of today, but it is possible. Young people become ‘friends’ in their social network with the brands that appeal to them. If you offer innovative brand experiences as an advertiser, you get commitment and therefore loyalty in exchange. Dunn mentions the example of Orange Rockcorps, an initiative launched by telecom provider Orange. It is currently only operational in London, but there are plans for a further rollout following its success. In exchange for 4 hours of community service, youngsters receive an Orange SIM card and some other goodies and they are also invited to music events that are exclusive to Rockcorps participants. As well as offering new experiences, presenting content that appeals to youngsters is also very important. Gilette M3 Power developed an online jet ski game that was very much appreciated by young people in the UK.

Pimm’s, a drinks brand belonging to the Diageo group, created “It’s Sunshine O’Clock”, a website where youngsters can enter a postcode to find out local pubs with a beer garden and an estimate of the number of hours of sunshine you can enjoy there on that particular day.

Mars was looking for a co-presenter for the Mars Planet MySpace Radio, a weekly radio hour on MySpace with DJ and TV presenter Alex Zane. Mars recognises the Millenials’ need to achieve something in life, even if it is just their fifteen minutes of fame. O2, the mobile phone brand, unleashed a battle for the UK’s Favourite University on Facebook, fostering the team spirit of young people studying at the same university. It is still possible to get the commitment of the current generation of young people, Dunn concluded, as long as brands respond to the needs and drives of this generation and present relevant activities. To the ‘me, myself & I’ generation, relevance has everything to do with finding common ground with their personal and direct environment.

Nadia Zohhadi, Global & European CMI Manager for the Axe/Lynx brand at Unilever, made a nice presentation on the brand’s co-creation strategy. Each year, Axe/Lynx markets a new variant. Last summer, they brought together 16 leading edge and creative students, brand managers, CMI managers and creative teams from the agencies and Fragrance Houses in Alicante in order to generate new ideas and arrive at some new products for Axe/Lynx. The students received advance training from the Fragrance House on how scents work and then put their creativity to work in several rounds. Under the slogan “A fresh start in a rotten world”, they created the foundation for the new Axe variant for 2010. After an online validation of the concept by a larger group of influencers, it was decided what Axe/Lynx will be marketing next year in a co-creation process of only 8 weeks. The students also thought of the below-the-line campaign ideas for the launch of the Axe Dark Temptation, better known as the chocolate variant. That is how “chocolate man” emerged as the clear leading hero of the campaign. The students contributed several activation ideas, which the brand is currently rolling out in Europe.

Nick Gadsby, Associate Director at Lawes Consulting, brand advisors specialised in semiotics and cultural analysis, presented a story on the social gaming phenomenon. Social gaming refers to games that young people play together (or against each other). The generic term includes many different types of games:

• MMOGs, such as World of Warcraft (with no less than 11.5 million users, who on average game 17 hours a week), Runescape, Age of Conan, LOTR Online, but also Habbo and Club Penguin
• FPS, such as Halo 3, Counter-Strike, Left 4 Dead,
• Family games, including the very popular Wii range,
• Music games, with titles such as Rock Band, Sing Star and Guitar Hero, and
• Sports games, such as Fifa 09 and Pro Evolution Soccer 2009.

According to Gadsby, the main motive of gamers is simply escapism. In this context it is important for brands to know that the daily amount of attention paid by solo gamers to a game falls fairly rapidly and drastically following the game’s purchase. For a very extensive game such as GTA4, gamers’ attention falls impressively only 3 months after purchasing it. However, for social games, such as Call of Duty IV – which is essentially much more superficial as far as game options are concerned – gamers’ interest fades much less rapidly, even after 6 months. So social escapism commits gamers for longer, so they stay interested more intensely for longer. Like Dunn before him, Nick Gadsby reiterates that a high commitment level is a basic condition for word-of-mouth communication. Research shows that 16 to 19-year-olds are the most important gamers population as well as the largest social gamers group.

Then Gadsby asked the audience to complete the Bartle Test. The Bartle Test was developed by Dr. Richard Bartle, who co-invented the Massively Multiplayer Online Game in 1978, known at the time as MUD. He developed the test to classify players of online multiplayer games according to playing style, motivations and objectives. I turned out to predominantly match the Explorer profile, like most of the other people in the room, which was crammed with researchers. This immediately proved that the Bartle test works, because Explorers are gamers who get a kick out of knowledge and learning and always want to discover new and interesting things. They go for games with much content and adventure. I failed to mention that I was only 1 point away from matching the Killer Gamer profile, because as a Belgian, I didn’t exactly want to be associated with crèche killer Kim De Gelder abroad. Then Nadia Zohhadi raised her hand and asked Gadsby whether it is possible to be two profile types at the same time: she was an Explorer as well as a Killer… For Killers, games can be compared to a sport: the other gamers are their prey. They obviously want to make the game hard for the other players and kill them. Explorers and Killers are the two most important groups of social gamers according to Bartle’s classification. They make up 75% of the population. Achievers and Socialisers roughly contribute equally to make up the remaining 25% of the group. Achievers want to get most points and earn the best items, so they tend to spend many hours gaming. To them, a game stands for success and reputation. Top scores are therefore extremely important. In the lifestyle segmentation we created for MTV Networks Netherlands they can be recognised as “Nerds”. Socialisers simply see gaming as a form of entertainment similar to watching television, listening to music or going to the cinema. To them it is all about hanging out together with friends, chatting and interacting with others. The basic classification can be represented in the following diagram:

As a brand, Gadsby says, you mainly have to understand the gamers and their world and then respond to it. As an example of how not to go about it, Gadsby mentioned the BBC making a Robin Hood character appear in World of Warcraft for the video release of Robin Hood. Coca Cola, however, released World of Warcraft packaging in China, which it supported with POS material making up a real life copy of the MMORPG access gate. Gadsby also provided an excellent example of product placement: Philips integrated an exact copy of the 1940s Philips factory as a realistic, historic location in Brothers in Arms – Hell’s Highway, which is set in World War II. So the same rule also applies here: authenticity for young people is the key to success.