New study reveals brand awareness of children and parents

How do children and families perceive brands? KB&B - The Kids Group posed this question in the run-up to the Kids.Teens & Marke 2017 congress. Answers can be found in the "Marken-Kinder" study, which took a closer look at brands from the automotive and telecommunications (smartphones) sectors in addition to the general brand affinity of the respondents. While it is only important for 25% of 3-4-year-olds that a product or service comes from a certain brand, this figure is already 70% among 14-year-olds. Brands are generally important or very important to only 20 percent of 6-year-olds; this figure rises to 59 percent among 13-year-olds.

Children have their own brand worlds

Children's brand worlds are initially determined by the categories relevant to them in their developmental phase. Primary school children primarily named toys, clothing, shoes and cell phones. For children in lower secondary school, shoes, clothing and cell phones must come from brands. Just under 68% of children state that they know brands from television - but as soon as children have access to the internet, this figure rapidly converges. From the children's point of view, they get to know fewer brands at home, but as they grow up, friends become increasingly important as brand mediators. When asked which people have an influence on whether they particularly like a brand, 60 percent of 4-year-olds cite their parents as reference persons, for 14-year-olds it is over 75 percent friends; bloggers/Youtubers are on a par with parents at this age.

In the automotive sector, the same major brands dominate among both parents and children

When it comes to cars, the preference for big brands is passed on from parents to children. Both parents and their children spontaneously named VW, BMW, Mercedes, Audi and Opel as the car brands that immediately came to mind.

Brand preferences are passed on gender-specifically

Preferences for certain brands are also passed on by gender. The same brands - Audi, VW, BMW, Porsche and Mercedes - can be found in the top 5 for mothers and girls and fathers and boys. The exception is Tesla, which has pushed Mercedes out of the top 5 for fathers.

Boys love Porsche, girls like VW

Children are also very close to their parents when it comes to the characteristics of brands - the clearest difference is in the assessment of the "traditional" dimension - children lack the necessary time access here. Children rate the VW brand as particularly family-friendly, Tesla as environmentally friendly and Mini as modern.

Samsung and Apple are the top dogs in smartphones

The smartphone market in families is dominated by Samsung and Apple, which also have the most fans behind them - both among parents and children. Over 44% of girls, boys and mothers say they are Samsung fans. Fathers are most involved with this type of technical device in the family and so they also know and like the brands (e.g. Xiaomi) and new products (e.g. Google Pixel) that were previously less well-known in Germany. Overall, Samsung has a more balanced image than Apple, whose image is very much based on the dimensions of "innovative" and "high-quality". 28% of children perceive Apple as high-quality. Despite the battery scandal surrounding the Galaxy Note 7, around 20 percent of children and parents assign the quality "reliable" to the Samsung brand.

Children are the buyers of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow

For Rolf Kosakowski, CEO and founder of KB&B - The Kids Group, the results are a serious indicator for the advertising industry: "Brands are childhood friendships. And they generate the buyers of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Anyone who recognizes this underestimates the potential of contemporary family communication." On request, the agency can provide a chart report with a detailed evaluation of the general part of the survey and, optionally, the detailed surveys on the topics of "Automotive" and "Telecommunications (smartphones)".