The following is interesting, with “coolness” ranking well down the list of reasons people report having bought iPods. Granted, there are normative and truthfulness issues here, so you have to be careful about reading overly much into the results, but I’d still be curious to know how much iPod’s cool factor has changed among consumers over the last few years as it has become more widespread among the parental-set.
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Yes, I suspect that the coolness factor is a log higher than people care to admit. The really interesting reason to me, though is “sound quality.” It’s 7th on the list, beating only “uncertain.” Remind me what an iPod is for again…
Ah, missed that ! Very good point. If people are in denial that they are buying an audio device to listen to music then they can hardly be trusted to testify its cool-ness.
Oh come on, as if there’s any real difference in sound quality between mp3 players. A Creative is a Sony is an iPod as far as a buyer is concerned
The numbers don’t tell us if the iPod is “so cool” or “no cool”, just that social cache is less of a factor than its other attributes. This is healthy from a branding perspective, because it’s going to take a lot of Madison Ave savvy on behalf of the competition to make up for Apple’s “Jonathan Ive” factor.