Consumers Choose The Best And The Worst Car Brands
Tesla is one of the ten highest rated car brands in America, says the Consumer Reports 2012 Car-Brand Perception Survey. Is that a good thing? Marketers are troubled by this development. The trouble is not that a newcomer like Tesla is rated so highly.
Overall, the halos of the top brands are fading fast.
Toyota, Ford, Honda, and Chevrolet, perennial leaders in the survey, maintained their top positions but have seen the points gap decrease. Most of the top brands saw double-digit drops in their total scores. Which allows smaller companies to catch up.
At the turn of the millennium, people in highly developed countries started to tire of brands. Words like “brand blase”, “anti-brand” and “reverse snobism” made the rounds. It started with fashion, where the display of fancy labels became gauche, and low priced outlets like H&M or Uniqlo became cool. Cars were one of the last areas where brands made a difference. Now it seems to be their turn.
“Overall, the car-brand leaders do not stand out from the pack the way they did only a couple years ago,” says the study. Toyota continues to dominate overall in brand perception, although it slipped a 17 points, compared with last year’s survey results. Other top brands, Ford, Honda, and BMW, likewise dropped more than 20 points. Cadillac and Chevrolet saw only single-digit decreases.
America’s Top Car Brands 2012
BrandScoreToyota131Ford121Honda94Chevrolet92Mercedes-Benz84BMW69Volvo67Cadillac63Lexus54Tesla51America’s Worst Car Brands 2012
BrandScoreInfiniti16Mazda16Jeep12Suzuki11Mercury10Land Rover8Fiat7Mini7Mitsubishi7Saab5
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Mazda was the shocker for me. Try that in Canada and it'll be a different story. Mazda is always a perennial favourite up here.
My wife has a 2008 Honda Accord and I drive a 2009 Mazda 6. The Accord has about 40,000 miles on it, and the Mazda about 25,000. Rather than getting a second Accord back in 2009, I got the Mazda 6 because Honda had moved away from the core of the sport sedan market with their latest Accord design philosophy, especially with their Accord interiors. In our experience, the Mazda 6 is every bit as good a car as the Honda Accord -- or better if responsiveness and handling are considered -- and the quality and attentiveness of Mazda dealer service in our area is just as good as, if not better, than Honda's dealer service. Mazda's low rating is a bum rap, plain and simple.
Perception is not reality when it comes to Jeep. Go price a used Wrangler. How about Grand Cherokee's Plant adding 1100 jobs to add a third shift? And Mazda, Infinity, Mercury so low! My perception of Consumers Report continues to be the same - bird cage liner!
Silly me I thought Teslea was an English tea?