Teenagers are a complex demographic, which is why Google has published a new study called “It’s Lit”, which found that modern teens seem to think that Google themselves are “lit”, “raw”, “the real deal”, and all other applicable variants of cool and hip. Teens’ opinion of Google as a brand, according to the study, is third on the list, right behind Netflix and YouTube, which placed number one in the coolest streaming services. Google’s Chrome browser managed to score in the top ten as well, though at the bottom. Teens think of Google as a fun company with their values in the right place and achievements to match.
In a word association challenge, teens ended up thinking Google when they heard things like search, fast, Android, and even awesome. Some teens surveyed say that Google excels at all their endeavors, while others say that Google represents an insanely vast wealth of information at the world’s collective fingertips. According to the study, teenagers think that YouTube is cool because of the wide variety of content available and the DIY approach to fame and information that it evangelizes. Chrome, meanwhile, made the list because of how fast and reliable it is. When asked what makes a company cool, a number of teens said that they like to see companies doing good for their employees, as well as providing products that are either beautiful and refined, like Apple, a departure from the norm, like Tesla, or even both.
In making their study, Google took another large and sought-after demographic into account; millennials. This crowd were all teenagers not long ago, but the values dissonance from today’s teenagers is fairly large. While both crowds think that YouTube is the best media platform and one of the coolest things around, and both love Google equally but for different reasons, their opinions on things like fast food and gaming practically qualify as a brand war. Opinions on Google and their products, and on tech in general, tended to be fairly similar; both embrace the mobile world, both seem to favor companies that innovate, and both show a love of fashion. Millennials, however, seem to show a love of function over form, leaning away from some newer, trendier brands and toward tried and true favorites in their cool rankings. Overall, both groups are similar, but have their differences in key areas, making it feasible to appeal to both demographics with the same product, but only in certain spheres. Google, of course, is in one of those spheres, being one of the big internet firms shaping the modern web and the face of the tech world. lit