The 2012 Harris Poll Youth EquiTrend study by Harris interactive is making Nintendo very happy today. While game systems in general receive higher scores than other technologies surveyed in Harris Interactive's annual survey, Nintendo Wii earns the overall highest score among all technology brands included in the study.
Jeni Lee Chapman, Executive Vice President and leader of Harris' Brand and Communication Consulting group, observes, "For video gaming to have the highest equity scores compared to all other tech categories, and Wii the highest within the category, implies that Wii has serious potential to stretch into other products. Just as Apple entered the hearts and minds of consumers through music with iTunes and the iPod, Nintendo has entered into youth's heart with their video gaming platform. One day we may be saying, 'move over Apple, here comes Wii.'"
Apple's various brands also did surprisingly well in the Computer, Mobile Phone and Computer Tablet categories.
The Youth EquiTrend report "calculates brand equity by measuring familiarity, quality, and purchase consideration." From there an average score for each category is developed and the "Brand of the Year" is then awarded to the highest ranking brands in their respective categories. Within the 13 youth interest categories that comprise the study, there are four technology, telecommunication, and gaming groups: computers, mobile phones, computer tablets, and video gaming platforms.
Apple Computers is the 2012 Harris Poll Youth EquiTrend Computer Brand of the Year, followed by Hewlett-Packard, Sony, and Dell. Apple's iPhone is the 2012 Harris Poll Youth EquiTrend Mobile Phone Brand of the Year. HTC phones, Samsung phones, and LG phones follow in rank order. iPad is the 2012 Harris Poll Youth EquiTrend Computer Tablet Brand of the Year. Motorola Xoom, BlackBerry PlayBook, and Samsung Galaxy round out the brands that rank above category average. Among all youth, the Nintendo Wii is the 2012 Harris Poll Youth EquiTrend Video Gaming Platform Brand of the Year, followed by the Sony Playstation 3 and then the Nintendo DS.
This year's Harris Poll Youth EquiTrend study was conducted online among 5,077 U.S. consumers ages 8-24 in August, 2011. A total of 121 brands were rated among 8-12 year olds and 167 brands among 13-24 year olds. Each 8-12 year old respondent was asked to rate a total of 15 randomly selected brands and each 13-24 year old respondent was asked to rate a total of 22 randomly selected brands. Each brand received at least 130 ratings.
Data was weighted to be representative of the entire U.S. population of consumers ages 8-24 on the basis of age, sex, education, urbanicity (8-17 year olds) race/ethnicity, region, parental education (8-17 year olds) and income (18-24 year olds), and data from respondents ages 18 and over were also weighted for their propensity to be online.
