Quantifying Cool: Insights from 200,000+ 13-39-year-olds
Leading youth research and intelligence platform, YPulse, today releases its Cool Brands 2026 report - a comprehensive ranking of brand coolness among 13-39-year-olds.
YPulse tracks more than 1,400 brands in North America and Western Europe weekly. Based on more than 200,000 interviews continuously conducted by YPulse in a 12-month period, the rankings reflect the number of young consumers who actively select each brand as “cool”, offering one of the most robust measures of cultural relevance among younger generations.
While the report includes findings from 13-39-year-olds, it spotlights a critical subset for marketers: teens. YPulse data shows that “coolness” is one of the most consistent and powerful drivers of brand preference among 13-17-year-olds, ranking above “high quality” and “trendy” when it comes to the products they want to buy.
MaryLeigh Bliss, YPulse’s Chief Content Officer says; “Coolness has always been the currency of youth culture. It begins with teens and from there, ripples outwards to influence other generations. YPulse tracks the "cool" diagnostic continuously broken out by age, gender, market, to provide marketers with the intelligence they need to understand not just who is winning with teens today - but why.”
Key Teen Findings:
- Cool is a driver of their purchases: 71% of 13–17-year-olds in North America say it is important that the brands they purchase are cool - a figure that holds steady across young adults (67%) and Millennials (69%).
- Cool drives peer-to-peer recommendations: Nearly half of teens say they're more likely to try a brand if their friends think it's cool. Only 15% of teens say a brand's coolness does not have any sort of effect.
- Coolness drives organic social buzz: Two out of five 13–17-year-olds in North America say that when they buy something really cool, they post it to social media, giving brands with strong cool scores a direct line to peer-driven discovery without paid amplification.
- Top 10 Teen Cool Brands 2026:
- Nike
- PINK
- Apple Pay
- TikTok
- Jordan
- YouTube
- Cash App
- Doritos
- Fortnite
- iPhone
Led by MaryLeigh Bliss, YPulse will host the Teen Cool Brands 2026 free webinar on Wednesday March 25 at 12pm EST / 11am CST / 9am PST. Register here.
Brands and marketing leaders can book a meeting with YPulse to receive access to the full Cool Brands 2026 report here which includes the Teen Cool Brands Top 50 list.
Report Methodology
Rankings are drawn from the YPulse Brand Tracker, which monitors 1,400+ brands weekly across North America and Western Europe. For each brand, respondents selected which brands they felt were "Cool" from a list of up to 16 brands within a single industry they're aware of. Cool scores reflect the share of 13–39-year-olds selecting each brand, collected continuously over a 12-month period among more than 200,000 annual interviews.
The Teen subset is drawn from more than 43,711 interviews with 13–17-year-olds across the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, Germany, Italy and Spain to offer a data-driven picture of where brand perception stands with the next generation of consumers.
About YPulse
Founded in 2004, YPulse is the leading authority on youth culture - today’s tweens, teens, college students, young adults and young parents. The subscription-based research platform provides companies and organizations strategic insight on how to reach the next generation. Staffed with a cross-functional team of researchers, marketers, writers and technologists, YPulse offers clients a 360-degree view of what it’s like to be a young consumer in today’s age.
About MaryLeigh Bliss
As of YPulse’s Chief Content Officer, MaryLeigh Bliss oversees YPulse’s syndicated products and ongoing surveys that help brands to reach young consumers in the U.S. and Western Europe. Bliss is a culture and youth insights expert, consulting with brands to identify actionable insights, align young consumer strategy, and layer generational and youth knowledge over data findings. Bliss has worked with a range of Fortune 500 brands and has been interviewed by The New York Times, Digiday, Business Insider, Adweek and more.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260305511027/en/
“Coolness has always been the currency of youth culture. It begins with teens and from there, ripples outwards to influence other generations."
Contacts
Media:
Maisie Callcott
maisie@societymarcom.com
