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Chick-fil-A is cooler than Vice among teens, according to a new Google report titled ‘It’s Lit’

Google has a new “guide to what teens think is cool.”

Screengrab from Google’s “It’s Lit” report on teens

Chick-fil-A is “lit,” according to Google. So are YouTube, Google itself and Netflix.

The consumer trends and marketing insights team Think with Google put out a report last week on brand perceptions among U.S. teens. The company regularly puts out these types of marketing materials as a way to stoke more ad buying.

If we’re going to listen to a multinational corporation tell us about what’s cool, then Vice — the media network that bills itself as news for young people — is not considered very cool; Chick-fil-A is very well known and is considered pretty cool, and YouTube is the “most cool” brand.

The report is based on three research studies commissioned by Google, including a survey of 13-17 year olds (Gen Z) who were asked to rank 122 brands in terms of coolness.

The taste of kids these days seems a little suspect (Chick-fil-A appears to be a thing among teens, at least according to Google), but then again if you have to ask what’s cool, you probably won’t find out from a survey.

Here are the top 10 coolest brands, according to the surveyed teens:

  1. YouTube
  2. Netflix
  3. Google
  4. Xbox
  5. Oreo
  6. GoPro
  7. PlayStation
  8. Doritos
  9. Nike
  10. Chrome

Google products are pretty well represented in that list. And kids — shocker — associate Google with search, according to the report.

Here’s a graphic that shows Vice looking pretty lonely over toward the least-cool, least-brand-awareness corner. Diagonal from Vice, toward the most-cool, high-brand-awareness corner sits Chick-fil-A, known for its slogan, “Eat Mor Chikin” and for its CEO’s past vocal opposition to gay marriage. Presumably those details don’t figure into the supposed coolness of Chick-fil-A.

Graphic from Google “It’s lit” report
Graphic from Google “It’s lit” report
Google

Vice did a little better with millennials aged 18-24, according to the report:

Graphic on millennial brand awareness and perception
Graphic on millennial brand awareness and perception
Google

Instead of Chick-fil-A, millennials’ fast food chain of choice is In-N-Out. Millennials also hold Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp in higher regard than members of Gen Z do.

Cars are apparently not much of a thing among teens, and “job/money” ranks pretty low in terms of coolness, according to one survey included in the report.

Screenshot of Google report
Screenshot of Google report
Google

(Blue is male respondents, pink is female in this graphic.)

You can read more about the methodology of the surveys in the report, which begins with defining “cool” and goes downhill from there.


This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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