04.04.2008

Habbo, the largest virtual world for teenagers, today unveiled the results of its second Global Habbo Youth Survey.
Examining the interests, values, attitudes, online habits of a global
audience, the survey reveals teens' current media usage, consumption
behavior and brand preferences in order to better understand what
compels youth around the world.

For the study, Habbo surveyed 58,486 teens between the ages 11 and
18 from 31 countries, and identified five clearly defined behavioral
segments amongst the respondents. With each group representing
approximately one-fifth of the total teens surveyed, the five groups
were categorized and described as the following:

• Achievers: Ambitious, strong minded and materialistic. They value
  material success and whilst having lots of friends do not consider
  other people's feelings as much as other segments
• Rebels: Value gathering lots of experiences in life and
  enjoy a fast-paced lifestyle. Like Achievers they want to become "rich
  and famous", but they are not willing to compromise on having fun in
  order to achieve this goal
• Traditionals: Value having an ordinary life and see
  themselves as honest, polite and obedient. They are keen to help others but are less ambitious and pleasure seeking compared to other segments
• Creatives: Share many of the same positive traits as
  Traditionals, but with a focus on creativity. They place value in
  getting a good education and being influential in life, but they are
  also active, social and have an interest in travelling
• Loners: More introverted and less likely than other segments
  to identify with any specific personality traits. They rarely see
  themselves as active or self-assured, but are more open minded in their
  attitudes compared to Traditionals or Achievers

A major focus of the survey was how teens communicate today. 76
per cent of teens globally use the internet to Instant Message friends.
Overall, Instant Messaging is the most popular communication tool in
most of the countries. Though 72 per cent of teens still hold active
email accounts, the majority of communication with peers is no longer
conducted over email. The survey revealed that email is generally
reserved by teens more for non-personal needs such as school or work,
or correspondence with family members.

"According to the Global Habbo Youth Survey, the most popular global websites amongst teens are YouTube and MySpace," said Emmi Kuusikko,
Director of User and Market Insight for Sulake, Habbo's parent company
"Of those surveyed, 50 percent responded that they forward humorous
links and videos to their friends, while 30 percent regularly upload
content, confirming the notion that teenagers have an active online
presence."

"Perhaps surprisingly social networks appear as relatively low
online priorities for young people, as 40 per cent of teens do not view
social networks as an important part of their online experience on a
global basis. This is due to the English-language bias of most social
networks but considering Habbo's global success this also suggests that
the localisation of sites is important for teens communicating online.
In countries where social networks are considered popular though they
have become a regular communication channel between friends."

Habbo has worked in partnership with leading brands that enter the
virtual world to engage creatively with teens online. The survey showed
that brand familiarity clearly affects teens' choices as consumers,
with 74 percent saying that familiar brands guide their purchasing
decisions. Reinforcing the brand familiarity findings, global
well-known brands, such as McDonald's, Coca-Cola and Nokia ranked high
for both boys and girls. Gender differences are more visible for
example in clothing brands. According to the results, boys favor Nike,
Adidas and Billabong as their top clothing brands, whereas girls
preferred Hennes and Mauritz, Nike and Roxy.

A report of the Global Habbo Youth Survey 2008 is available to
buy as a hard copy book of 250 pages. For inquiries and orders, please
contact: marketinsight@sulake.com

Further survey results on different topics will be published in the
sulake.com blog in the following weeks. The first blog concerns mobile
phone usage among youth, you can read it here.

About the research

The research was
conducted within the virtual world, Habbo, and the total number of
respondents (after data cleaning) was 58, 486. The research was
conducted between October and November 2007. 31 countries were surveyed
and statistical weighting was employed to give all participating
countries an equal weight in the global results. The results of the
research are available on request.

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