Now and again, I’m prone to sending out some surveys via Facebook. I use Facebook because it’s an easy way to spread information quickly to a targeted group of people. It certainly helps me get people to take my surveys.I like to put surveys together, because I genuinely just find them interesting. I like throwing a question out there and seeing how people respond. That is the first thing I like. The second is that I am able to take a question that I was interested in and interpret the data I gather.
I enjoy looking at the numbers and the results that occur from the questions I pose. Obviously, before every survey I give out, I always have a hypothesis of some kind. I suppose one of the motivators behind my surveys is to try and get a more comprehensive answer. Additionally, it also acts as a check on my own logic. Just because I believe something to be true doesn’t mean that the masses will agree with me. My surveys get to the bottom of this.
There is a minor drawback to the surveys I send out to my friends on Facebook; their agitation. I have great friends and I’m glad that they support me in my endeavors, however, when they receive a lot of survey requests via Facebook, they get a little annoyed. I feel poorly about this, but as I said earlier, Facebook is really helpful in spreading information quickly. People always have the option of declining participation in the survey. Unfortunately, this is the trend of the majority of people who I send my surveys out to, so I don’t always get the sample sizes I would like.
Anyway, my most recent poll that I have interpreted to date has been Those Answers Inc. Survey on Cool. Those Answers Inc. is the parent company through which MiParadox is its blogging subsidiary. The surveys that I run are always through Those Answers Inc. I encourage you to visit the website and see the types of activities it is involved in. Currently, they are running a survey on Fortune 500 Companies.
Well, I thought I’d finally disclose the results that I got regarding the survey on Cool.
- Results
The impetus behind this surveys was actually fueled by a friend of mine who is working for Axe Marketing this summer. That is a really sweet gig if you ask me. Axe has some of the best marketing for my demographic (18-35 males), and it’s cool that he is contributing to their ideas. Quite simply, he asked me what brands I thought were cool and why?
I figured it would be easy for me to list a couple of my favorite brands, and why in fact I enjoyed them, however, I felt like I would be doing him an injustice. So, in a sense, I went through this process to do a little market research for my buddy. It is probably way past due, but better late than never you know.
To clarify, the definition of cool was pulled from Wikipedia, and it states, “Cool is an aesthetic of attitude, behavior, comportment, appearance, style and Zeitgeist. Because of the varied and changing connotations of cool, as well its subjective nature, the word has no single meaning. It has associations of composure and self-control (cf. the OED definition) and often is used as an expression of admiration or approval.”
Respondents were asked how much they agree with the definition, and this group had an average score of 3.00, which represents the statement, “I agree.” So, when we think about what “cool” means for this survey, we have to look at it through the scope of the definition, and it is warranted that this group generally agrees with the statement given.
Here are the results of the Cool Brand portion of the Survey:
There was a wide array of Brands that people could choose from; 13 options in all. If we break it down, Under Armor was considered the “coolest” brand. It received 7 of 26 votes, or 26.9% of the votes. Under Armor was followed by Nike with 6 of 26 votes, 23.1%, and in third place was Adidas with 19.2%.
Looking closer, the reasons people chose Under Armor to be the coolest brand can be summarized in four distinct points:
- Personal Use
- Growth of Company
- Image
- Originality/Pioneers of the Industry
People cited Image most frequently in choosing Under Armor as the coolest brand. This points heavily towards the influence of marketing. Marketing agencies work hard to develop an image for their product so that people will like it and hopefully think it is cool.
This information runs counter to some other results from the survey. The respondents were also asked in the survey, “who determines cool?” The respondents could pick one of five choices: television, magazines, radio, friends, and family. Overwhelmingly, the respondents replied that friends were most important in determining cool; over 69% of all respondents agreed with this.
However, in describing why the brand they chose was cool, no respondents made a reference to their friends, and only 2 respondents alluded to the fact that the people around them wore that particular brand.
This raises an interesting argument about who actually defines cool. Although people may think that their friends are what determines cool, perhaps they need to look at who or what determines cool for their friends.
In this exercise it appears as though the power of advertising and marketing really outshine the impact of one’s confidants. It is important to be aware of the significant role that advertising plays in our lives.
We are surrounded by it almost constantly; while driving on the street, while watching TV, or even reading a magazine. Marketing agencies are hard at work dreaming up ways to catch your attention for a millisecond, infiltrate your mind with images and concepts that are intended to reorganize how you think and feel about a particular object so that you will use your money to buy their product.
Mitt Romney explains this concept of advertising very succinctly in his book, Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games, when he says, “Branding has become a big buzzword these days. The idea is straightforward: I think back to the time when I couldn’t care whether I got a Coke, Pepsi, or an RC Cola. They were all the same to me: sweet delicious, and, because my Mom frowned on caffeine drinks, rare. At the soda machine, I would have selected whichever was closer to my pointer finger.
Over the years, I began to associate Coke with all sorts of things I like: smiling young people, sports, music, the Olympics, and recently, polar bears. Those associations make me ‘feel good’ about Coke, a lot better than I do about RC Cola (are you still out there RC?). So when I pick up a twelve-pack at the grocery store or step up to a soft drink machine, I’ll push the Coke button even if it costs a little more.”
The same holds true with most any product; associate it with enough goodness, and you’ll hook the average person in every time.
- Auxiliary Results
Within my study on cool brands, I also asked about other things that are cool, but didn’t really have an idea as to the outcome. I just did it to fill a little space and seek some more information out that I could look at.
I asked respondents to answer the coolest in the following categories: Sports, Business, Politics, Music, and Late Night Television. Along with these, I also asked for reasoning why, but confined their choices to the following factors: persistence, creativity, luck, aggression, faith, planning, humor, style, and advertising.
- Sports
The Coolest Athlete was determined to be Tiger Woods. He received 52% of the votes. Second was Tom Brady with 24% and third was Kobe Bryant with 16%. I have to take in minor responder bias here as Tiger Woods was going on a rampage during the survey, ultimately winning the US Open Golf Tournament in dramatic fashion.
The reason for being cool is most attributed to Style for athletes, gaining 56% of the votes. Advertising was attributed 16% of the time.
- Business
The coolest businessman was won by an absolute landslide. Eric Schmidt of Google Inc. collected 81% of the votes. I find this quite astonishing, as most people don’t even associate him with Google automatically. This honor typically goes to Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The rest of the field was completely insignificant aside from Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, who got 8% of the votes. This really tells you a lot about how people define a cool business. Those that are tech based and innovative, as Google and Microsoft are, win the day.
This is further warranted by the reasoning of the respondents. 53% attributed their choice to creativity and 21% based their decision on style. I guess that’s what it takes to run a thriving company these days.
- Politics
As far as the coolest politician, this was probably the tightest field. A friend of mine actually came up to me the day after I opened up the survey and said that none of the politicians were cool, which I found quite amusing. Anyway, the coolest politician happens to be Sarkozy of France. He just narrowly beat out Bush, who was just a single vote ahead of Robert Mugabe, the dictator of
**Click the Image to see it more clearly**
To be a cool politician, you must have Style and Planning, the two highest voted categories for politics.
- Music
The music industry continues to be run by Jay-Z. He received the most amount of votes, narrowly beating out Kanye West and the Beatles.
Similar to being a good businessman, you have to have both style and creativity to be cool in the music industry. This reminds me of quote by Jay-Z himself, “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business…man.”
- Late Night Television
Jon Stewart and Conan O’Brien tied to take this category. I would agree with the results of this survey. They are both really edgy and fun to watch. Not surprisingly, the most important factor to be a cool late night television host comes down to humor. Be funnier than the next guy and you got the job it appears.
Finally, I asked what the coolest country was. The
- Conclusion
Anyway, here was a little insight into what people think is cool these days and why they think that. The auxiliary results are fun to look at, but the meaning behind this survey is really contained within the brand results.
People generally regarded the “image” of a brand as the most important concept in thinking it is cool. This, however, conflicts with how people think they interpret cool; via their friends.
This sheds enormous light on the powerful impacts of marketing and advertising, and how it can distort and manipulate views to elicit a certain response. Remember to always be critical and think about the stimuli within your environment. It shapes you.
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