January 2008
Toyota and Honda top automotive brands in consumer perception
Consumer Reports car brand perceptions survey reveals the leaders in seven important categories
Automakers spend billions of dollars to promote their vehicles and build brand awareness. Yet, marketing alone does not shape
consumer perception without a clear connection to the vehicles in the showroom. In the latest Auto Pulse survey conducted
by the Consumer Reports National Research Center, Toyota and Honda brands ranked first and second, respectively, by dominant margins over all others.
Likewise, the vehicles from those brands have consistently performed well in our testing, often ranking among the best in
their classes, and have been mostly at the top of our reliability ratings over the years.
This survey focused on how consumers perceive and rank car brands in seven crucial areas, including safety, quality, value, performance, environmental friendliness, design, and technological innovation. It also looks at which of those factors are most important to consumers when buying a vehicle.
BEST AND WORST IN BRAND PERCEPTION
The chart below shows an aggregate score reflecting a brand’s total perception level across the seven areas. Scores are rounded to the nearest percent. Keep in mind that these scores don’t reflect the qualities of the brand’s vehicles, only the strength of the overall brand in the eyes of car buyers. The top five brands in each area are ranked on the Top five in brand perception by category page.
Other findings from the survey
Read more findings at Top five in brand perception by category.
HOW THE SCORES WERE CALCULATED
To learn about consumers’ car brand perceptions, the Consumer Reports National Research Center conducted a random, nationwide telephone survey from Dec. 6-10, 2007, contacting 2,037 adults. The survey data was collected from the 1,720 adults whose households own at least one car.
Overall brand perception is an index calculated as the total number of times that the particular make was mentioned as an exemplar across all seven categories, divided by the total unaided mentions. This approach compensates for awareness level, ensuring every brand has an equal chance of leading a category, not just the best-selling or most well-known brands.
Category scores reflect the number of times that the particular make was mentioned as an exemplar of the particular attribute, again adjusted for awareness.
This survey focused on how consumers perceive and rank car brands in seven crucial areas, including safety, quality, value, performance, environmental friendliness, design, and technological innovation. It also looks at which of those factors are most important to consumers when buying a vehicle.
BEST AND WORST IN BRAND PERCEPTION
The chart below shows an aggregate score reflecting a brand’s total perception level across the seven areas. Scores are rounded to the nearest percent. Keep in mind that these scores don’t reflect the qualities of the brand’s vehicles, only the strength of the overall brand in the eyes of car buyers. The top five brands in each area are ranked on the Top five in brand perception by category page.
| Overall brand perception | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| BEST | WORST | ||
| Brand | Score | Brand | Score |
| Toyota | 189 | Buick | 25 |
| Honda | 146 | Mercury | 22 |
| Ford | 112 | Mitsubishi | 21 |
| Chevrolet | 110 | Audi | 14 |
| GMC | 102 | Acura | 8 |
Other findings from the survey
- Among new-car shoppers, safety (63 percent) is the most important consideration, followed by quality (58 percent).
- Consumers consider friendliness to the environment (35 percent) to be more significant than styling (23 percent).
- The category “technology and innovation” (15 percent) scored as least important to car buyers.
- Toyota and Honda rank in the top five in six of the seven surveyed categories, with design/styling being the exception for
each.
- Chevrolet and Ford are the only U.S. brands that rank in the top five in three categories.
- Consumers overwhelmingly perceive Volvo as the leading safety brand. Its 77-percent score gives it a dominant lead over second-place
Toyota’s 20 percent. But other automakers that are consistently on the cutting edge of safety technology—such as BMW, Lexus,
and Mercedes-Benz—don’t even make it into the top five.
- Toyota (49 percent) and Honda (26 percent) have, by far, the strongest images for environmental friendliness. Their scores are significantly higher than third-place Ford (16 percent).
Read more findings at Top five in brand perception by category.
HOW THE SCORES WERE CALCULATED
To learn about consumers’ car brand perceptions, the Consumer Reports National Research Center conducted a random, nationwide telephone survey from Dec. 6-10, 2007, contacting 2,037 adults. The survey data was collected from the 1,720 adults whose households own at least one car.
Overall brand perception is an index calculated as the total number of times that the particular make was mentioned as an exemplar across all seven categories, divided by the total unaided mentions. This approach compensates for awareness level, ensuring every brand has an equal chance of leading a category, not just the best-selling or most well-known brands.
Category scores reflect the number of times that the particular make was mentioned as an exemplar of the particular attribute, again adjusted for awareness.
