There’s been a lot of talk about brands Gen Y loves. These are brands that people flock to without too much prodding. These are brands that have built up enough goodwill that they can continually try new offerings without fearing backlash or mass defections. Unfortunately, it’s a US-only list, so it’s fairly useless to anyone north of the border.

I present my largely unscientific, anecdotal list of brands that Canadian millennials trust:

1. Tim Horton’s
   As with the generation before us, and the ones that will come after, Timmies is the place to be. Late-night hangout and de-facto date location, every Canadian keeps Tim’s close to heart.
2. MuchMusic
   With lame-duck-no-music MTV in Canada, MuchMusic has a strong hold on teen culture. Teens absolutely love music videos, pretty young faces and celebrity tabloid gossip. MuchMusic’s only competition is a crippled version of MTV. With the MuchMusic credit card set to launch soon, they’re continuing to take advantage of their influence with teens.
3. Apple
   Quickly becoming synonymous with cool, Apple products are admired for simple yet sophisticated products. There are iPods, and then there’s “other mp3 players”. Millennials also love the eye-catching, slick design of Apple laptops.
4. President’s Choice
   PC brand products have quietly built a strong reputation with Canadian millennials, who have a sharp eye for value. PC’s broad strategy also includes no-fee banking, which is a hit with teenagers and poor college students.
5. Aritzia
   Homegrown, vibrant clothing retailer for girls. In-style designs paired with carefully designed retail spaces — it’s not surprising to see that Aritzia is a hit with Generation Y females.
6. Toyota
   Millennials know that they “should” get a Toyota, because it’s a reliable and dependable brand. All our lives, we’ve been told how American car companies are slow and clunky, while the Japanese keep churning out great cars.
7. Facebook
   Canadians love Facebook — Toronto has one of the highest accounts-per-capita in the world. Facebook has shown that they can get away with pretty much anything; even after the newsfeed riots last year, there were no mass exits. Your userbase staying when you piss over half of them off…now that’s brand loyalty.
8. Rogers
   Rogers Communications has a stranglehold on Canadian media. While its competitors are focusing on advertising using beavers and dogs, Rogers is the only one that positions itself as the “young” telco with snappy ads showing teens having a good time.
9. Ikea
   Cute, cheap and cool, Ikea is the first place high school students go when they need furniture for university. There’s a strong established reflex of “need-furniture-go-ikea”.
10. Axe Bodyspray
    Generation Y usually hates blatant and overt appeals — but Axe’s unabashed, tongue-in-cheek, transparent approach is very disarming. Horny women chasing after average-looking guys is a great way to get your target market’s attention. The Axe marketing team does a fantastic job on keying in on guy jokes (“Gamekillers” ad campaign was brilliant), and they’ve been greatly rewarded for keeping up with the Gen Y male mentality.

Prologue
Toyota is significant since Generation Y will be known as the generation that saw the clean, efficient Japanese automaker pass the stodgy, polluting American companies. That kind of organic recognition of quality will be with us for a lifetime.

The absence of Nike on the USA list is interesting. I remember Nike dominating the 1990s with their prestige appeals; it’s been clear so far that such appeals do not work well with Gen Y. The brands listed above have done well because they emphasize relevance and functionality, instead of “look how cool you could be if you bought this brand”.

These brands succeed because they’re simple and very accessible. They’ve also been smart at creating reflex associations:

When I need a cellphone, I’ll go to ROGERS.
When I need furniture, I’ll go to IKEA.
Let’s meet over coffee at TIM HORTON’S.

Honourable mention: Molson, Febreze, YTV