College Students Found to be Misinformed Consumers
Posted 23 Jul, 2007
A quote from the recent action movie, Transformers, has kids a little confused. In a quick interchange between two characters, a tech-savvy teenage girl informs a government higher-up that Nokia, a popular cell phone manufacturer, is Finnish, not Japanese.
As it turns out, a significant percentage of U.S. college students are misinformed consumers—they have no idea from where their favorite brands come. Anderson Analytics recently released a study based on a poll of 1,000 college students. The poll queried students about the origins of top brand names like Nokia, Volvo, and Lego.
The results speak for themselves. Out of 1,000 students, 58.4% thought the UK-made Land Rover was American. Over 55% of students thought that Hyundai cars came from Japan (they are actually manufactured in Korea). Only 4.4% of students knew the truth about Nokia’s Finnish roots; 53.6% believed Nokia to be Japanese.
Want to test your own brand knowledge? Here is a list of a handful of the most misidentified brands included in the Anderson Analytics study. See if you can guess the country of origin for each company. Then scroll down see the answers.
* Motorola
* IKEA
* Volvo
* Adidas
* Samsung
* Lego
.
.
.
.
.
.
* Motorola – USA (37.9% answered correctly)
* IKEA – Sweden (31.2% answered correctly)
* Volvo – Sweden (16.8% answered correctly)
* Adidas – Germany (12.2% answered correctly)
* Samsung – Korea (9.8% answered correctly)
* Lego – Denmark (8.4% answered correctly)
Any surprises? How do you think students would do identifying all those countries on a map?!
All the best,
Deborah Fox
Deborah Fox is the founder of Fox College Funding, a nationwide company that helps families find creative ways to reduce their college costs.
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A quote from the recent action movie, Transformers, has kids a little confused. In a quick interchange between two characters, a tech-savvy teenage girl informs a government higher-up that Nokia, a popular cell phone manufacturer, is Finnish, not Japanese.
As it turns out, a significant percentage of U.S. college students are misinformed consumers—they have no idea from where their favorite brands come. Anderson Analytics recently released a study based on a poll of 1,000 college students. The poll queried students about the origins of top brand names like Nokia, Volvo, and Lego.
The results speak for themselves. Out of 1,000 students, 58.4% thought the UK-made Land Rover was American. Over 55% of students thought that Hyundai cars came from Japan (they are actually manufactured in Korea). Only 4.4% of students knew the truth about Nokia’s Finnish roots; 53.6% believed Nokia to be Japanese.
Want to test your own brand knowledge? Here is a list of a handful of the most misidentified brands included in the Anderson Analytics study. See if you can guess the country of origin for each company. Then scroll down see the answers.
* Motorola
* IKEA
* Volvo
* Adidas
* Samsung
* Lego
.
.
.
.
.
.
* Motorola – USA (37.9% answered correctly)
* IKEA – Sweden (31.2% answered correctly)
* Volvo – Sweden (16.8% answered correctly)
* Adidas – Germany (12.2% answered correctly)
* Samsung – Korea (9.8% answered correctly)
* Lego – Denmark (8.4% answered correctly)
Any surprises? How do you think students would do identifying all those countries on a map?!
All the best,
Deborah Fox
Deborah Fox is the founder of Fox College Funding, a nationwide company that helps families find creative ways to reduce their college costs.
Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe by Email
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