BrandIntel Names Winners of the Second Annual Automotive Consumer Voice Awards

CHICAGO, IL and TORONTO--(CCNMatthews - February 08, 2007) - In an awards ceremony held today at the 2007 Chicago Auto Show, BrandIntel, a leader in translating consumer-created content into reliable business intelligence, announced the winners of its second annual Consumer Voice Awards(TM). The awards recognize best-in-class vehicles according to consumer discussions and sentiment across twelve vehicle segments, as expressed online via blogs, discussion forums and other social media. Winners are based on the BrandIntel's consumer sentiment index, which takes into account over 200 vehicle attributes such as quality, safety, performance, style and reliability. Ford ranked the highest in three categories with the Ford F-Series winning two years in a row for Best Full-Sized Pickup. Honda finished in second place with awards in two vehicle segments. The Consumer Voice Awards(TM) program is the first of its kind to recognize top-ranked automobiles, based solely on unaided, unscripted and unprompted consumer opinion. To determine the winners of the Consumer Voice Awards(TM), BrandIntel captured and analyzed online consumer-created content from January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2006 on 2006 model year vehicles. The analysis focused on the automotive brands that generated the most positive discussion and sentiment in online consumer communities. Using its proprietary LinkMap technology, BrandIntel tracked over 10 million raw search hits on the Internet and refined those results through technological filters and human analysis to utilize only the highest quality data for this study -- totaling nearly 450,000 consumer mentions. The complete list of 2007 winners includes: /T/ -- Best Compact Car -- Honda Civic -- Best Full-Size SUV -- Jeep Grand Cherokee -- Best Full-Size Pickup -- Ford F-Series -- Best Luxury Sedan -- Audi A4 -- Best Luxury Specialty -- Chevrolet Corvette -- Best Luxury SUV -- Acura RDX -- Best Midsize Pickup -- Toyota Tacoma -- Best Midsize SUV -- Ford Escape -- Best Minivan -- Honda Odyssey -- Best Sport Tourer -- Mazda CX-7 -- Best Standard Sedan -- Dodge Charger -- Best Standard Specialty -- Ford Mustang /T/ Key findings from the report include: /T/ -- In the Compact Car segment, the Honda Civic beat out Mazda3 due to new restyling and the introduction of the Si sedan; -- In the Standard Sedan segment, the Dodge Charger moved up from the No. 2 position last year to the No. 1 position this year, bumping the Ford Fusion; -- The Chevrolet Corvette won the Best Luxury Specialty segment for the second year in a row; -- The Acura RDX and the Mazda CX-7 are two first-time winners in their respective segments. /T/ "In a market where up to 90 percent of prospective buyers research a car before entering a dealership, the voice of consumers has become the best predictor of product success," said Randy Sears, vice president of automotive for BrandIntel. "We celebrate all winners of the 2007 BrandIntel Consumer Voice Award(TM) -- chosen by the consumer, not a select group of panelists -- as true leaders in their respective fields." Using proprietary Internet-monitoring technology combined with a patent-pending content analysis methodology, BrandIntel detects, analyzes and generates intelligence on tens of thousands of relevant comments about automobiles on a daily basis. The company scans the entire scope of the Internet and analyzes the most pertinent content to measure for assigned sentiment scores and share of discussion, rating the physical and emotional value of the results (positive or negative) to produce the relevant categorization records of information in all its reports. The report empowers automotive executives with the most comprehensive and actionable selection of consumer insight within the industry, designed to shed light on an array of daily business challenges. A copy of the Consumer Voice Awards(TM) report executive summary is available at www.brandintel.com Editors: To schedule interviews with BrandIntel research directors on upcoming topics, please contact Terry Frechette or Brittany Bevacqua of Lois Paul & Partners at 781-782-5000. About BrandIntel (www.brandintel.com) BrandIntel, a Brandimensions Inc. company, translates consumer-created content about brands, products and services into reliable data that helps companies advance the science of decision making. BrandIntel's patent-pending process combines award winning technology with human insight, resulting in the most reliable data in the industry. BrandIntel solutions help companies validate critical business decisions, uncover new opportunities for value creation and get closer to their customers. BrandIntel works with Fortune 1000 companies and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada, with offices in the United States.

Contact Information: Terry Frechette For BrandIntel 781-782-5791 terry_frechette@lpp.com or Maxine Friedman BrandIntel 646-202-9387 mfriedman@brandintel.com