No Single Brand Dominates College Minds

When it comes to brands, college students don't play favorites. A new survey shows that although 90% of returning college students can name a "favorite brand", no single brand is capturing more than 6% of unaided top-of-mind brand awareness/preference among this important demographic.

Stamford, CT, (PRWEB) October 3, 2005 -- When it comes to brands, college students don't play favorites. A new survey shows that although 90% of returning college students can name a "favorite brand", no single brand is capturing more than 6% of unaided top-of-mind brand awareness/preference among this important demographic. However, among the most popular brands mentioned, Nike took first place, mentioned by 6.0% of students, Coca Cola came in second place (3.0%), and tied for third place were American Eagle and Polo/Ralph Lauren (each with 2.7%). Other top 10 brands in the minds of college students were Sony (2.6%), Gap (2.5%), Adidas (2.0%), Old Navy (1.8%), and Abercrombie and Apple (tied for tenth place at 1.7%).

The survey, which analyzed the detailed responses of 1,000 returning US college students, was co-sponsored by Anderson Analytics, LLC and BrandPort Insights, the research and analysis division of BrandPort, Inc., an online advertising platform. Anderson Analytics is a full service marketing research consultancy with a teen research vertical, http://www.GenX2Z.com.

Communicating effectively to the youth market via advertising is obviously a challenge for most companies. Students were asked which advertisements they remembered seeing lately. They were also asked to comment on what made these ads really good or bad. The overall favorite advertiser was Geico, followed by Trojan.

The more popular and better remembered ads were primarily described as being "funny", and were also described with more emotive language. Popular ads were frequently described as making you "laugh" and being "new", "creative", "cute" and featuring "people/girl" and/or "music".

A number of commercials recalled were thought of as being bad. Burger King, and especially McDonalds commercials received the most unfavorable mentions. Bad commercials are simply thought of as being "too much" or not "making sense". The only good news for some brands is that bad commercials are over twice as difficult to remember as good commercials (26% VS 12% "can't remember", respectively).

The 2005 Back to School Brand Survey represents a major advancement in the marketing community's ability to reach younger audiences. The survey was conducted in September 2005 from a representative sampling of US college students who have registered with BrandPort to view and get paid for watching advertisements. Kivin Varghese, CEO of BrandPort, explained, "Our newly developed proprietary technology allows us to get better data and a better read on what consumers are thinking." The BrandPort Insights sample is much better than what is relied on by other market research firms reporting information on the college demographic. Varghese said, "We only talked to confirmed US college students; the 1,000 surveyed were pre-screened, and invitations were sent directly to their .edu email addresses."

The methodology and the way the data are analyzed is also unique. "Because of our advanced text coding and data mining techniques we are able to quickly and accurately analyze large qualitative data sets and get a much more accurate read on what respondents really think and do," said Jesse Chen, a Senior Consultant and Lead Application Developer at Anderson Analytics, LLC. "We don't have to include an exhaustive list of possible answers up front like other research firms, and thus we don't influence respondents' answers."

The 2005 Back to School Brand Study also explored other back-to-school information beyond branding information. Of particular concern to companies counting on back to school purchases was the survey finding that college students reported spending only $5.4 billion dollars on back to school merchandise not including text books, a number far lower than any projected by most recent surveys.

The average dollar amount spent this year on "back to school stuff / not including text books" by US college students was $350. While the amount spent ranged from "nothing at all" to "over $5,000," the most common dollar amount was $200. Freshmen were the exception, most commonly spending $300. Males spent only slightly more than women, $361 on average, versus $337 spent by women.

For more information or to make an inquiry about the full report, contact: http://www.andersonanalytics.com or http://www.brandport.com.

Available Topic Expert(s): For information on the listed expert(s), click appropriate link. Jesse Chen http://profnet.prnewswire.com/ud_public.jsp?userid=10003636

CONTACT: Jesse Chen of Anderson Analytics, LLC, +1-203-912-7175

Web site: http://www.andersonanalytics.com/http://www.brandport.com/http://www.GenX2Z.com/

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