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The 10 most-loved brands among British 18-34-year-olds

See, millennials *do* like things

The 10 most-loved brands among British 18-34-year-olds

By Tom Victor

18 October 2017

It’s an unwritten rule of society that the generation after yours is ungrateful and doesn’t like anything.

It doesn’t matter how old you are – you don’t understand the priorities of those even 10 years younger than you, and that’s fine. It’s how the world works, and everyone has generally been comfortable in their own ignorance.

Well, actually, no. it turns out ‘millennials’ – the butt of so many jokes made from this standpoint – actually do like a bunch of different things.

You know the kind of stuff: avocados, sriracha, socialism… but also brands. Yes, lots of brands.

YouGov’s BrandIndex has published some new research on the 10 most positively talked-about brands among 18-34-year-olds in the UK, and the results throw up one or two surprises.

It is largely dominated by tech companies, but there are a couple of more unlikely names.

1.Netflix – 73.8 on the BrandIndex
Its price might be on the way up, but the subscription streaming service is still number one based on positive conversations over a two-week period. There’s less time to go to the cinema these days, and more original shows and films have helped Netflix climb to the summit.
2.Facebook – 73.5
Suggestions that millennials are falling out of love with the social network might be a little wide of the mark. For all its flaws, Facebook remains ubiquitous across multiple generations, and it makes this list while Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat do not.
3.Apple - 73.3
No word on whether the tech giant has such a lofty reputation for one specific product, but plenty of young people own a MacBook, iPhone or iPad, if not more than one of the three. It is hot on the heels of the top brands around.
4.iPhone - 71.1
While other Apple brands come under the main umbrella, it seems people like to talk about the iPhone in its own right. Whether it’s due to the impending release of a new model is unclear, but the device has remained popular from one generation to the next.
5.Airbnb - 70.5
Plenty of people are passing up on budget hotels or hostels on their travels and going for the Airbnb option, and it’s serving them well. Whether it’s making holidays affordable or helping people earn a little more from their own place, Airbnb scores pretty high.
6.Primark - 70.4
One of the longer-established brands on the list (it has existed since 1969), but one with plenty in common with some of the others in the top 10. At one end of the scale we have high-end tech companies, and at the other we have affordability in the everyday – here’s where Primark comes in, and you’ll see others that fit the description lower down the list.
7.Spotify - 70.3
Monthly subscriptions are proving popular, whether it’s for a phone, video content or music consumption. As of July this year, Spotify had 60 million subscribers, and the UK contingent among them seem broadly positive about the music streaming service.
8.IKEA - 69.1
People clearly love meatballs a lot. Or maybe it’s the news that the furniture giant has started developing beds and mats for your pet. IKEA is the only company of its kind on the list, which suggests it’s doing something right.
9.Wetherspoon's - 67.3
With everything getting more expensive and many people’s wages failing to keep pace, cheap is popular. In many parts of the UK, Wetherspoon’s pubs offer cheaper pints than anywhere else by some distance, and even the owner’s divisive pro-Brexit stance hasn’t got in the way of people’s love for the pub chain.
10.PlayStation - 65.3
We’re still a nation of gamers, and it seems Sony’s brand is the one we say the nicest things about. The first PlayStation came out more than 20 years ago, and the brand remains the most popular in the gaming space according to YouGov’s numbers.