-- Best Compact Car -- Mitsubishi Lancer
-- Best Large Pickup -- Nissan Titan
-- Best Midsize SUV -- Mercury Mariner
-- Best Minivan -- Dodge Grand Caravan
-- Best Sport Tourer -- Nissan Rogue
-- Best Standard Sedan -- Chevrolet Malibu
-- Best Entry Luxury Sedan -- Cadillac CTS
Key findings from the report include:
-- Consumers' positive response to the newly redesigned Mitsubishi Lancer
propelled it to the winner in the Compact Car category calling out the
vehicle's aggressive new styling and high performance. This reflects
that consumers are ready for a change in the segment from the
traditional sales leader -- Honda Civic.
-- In the Minivan segment, the redesigned Dodge Grand Caravan swept the
category due in part to its "Swivel 'n Go" seating system and other new
convenience features.
-- Despite consistent competition from the Toyota RAV4 year-over-year, the
Mercury Mariner took honors in the Midsize SUV category, as it was
lauded by consumers for its interior and exterior styling as well as
for its performance and quality.
-- The Nissan Titan pushed the Ford F-Series out of the top spot in the
Large Pickup Truck category. Nissan has an opportunity to capture more
consumer interest by offering a diesel engine.
-- The Nissan Rogue, a new contender in the Sport Tourer segment, was
awarded over the Subaru Forester due to its Xtronic CVT™ transmission.
To determine the winners of the Consumer Voice Awards™, BrandIntel captured
and analyzed online consumer-created content from January 1, 2007 to
December 31, 2007. The analysis focused on the automotive brands that
generated the most positive discussion and sentiment in online consumer
communities. Using its proprietary technology, BrandIntel tracked tens of
millions of 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 Internet and word of mouth marketing has radically changed the way in
which consumers research automobiles and formulate purchasing decisions,"
said Alan Dean, VP of Research, BrandIntel. "Year-over-year we continue to
see how positive online consumer discussion by enthusiasts influences
mainstream automotive discussions. For automotive companies,
consumer-generated content can have a positive effect on their brand
awareness. This year's 2008 BrandIntel Consumer Voice Award™ winners
illustrate how a vehicle's redesign or other improvements can become a
topic of discussion among consumers online, one in which can ultimately
broaden market opportunities for both emerging and consistent category
leaders."
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™ report executive summary is available
at www.brandintel.com.
Editors: To schedule interviews with BrandIntel research directors on
upcoming topics, please contact Alicia Libucha 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 into reliable intelligence, enabling businesses to advance the
science of decision-making. The company offers an information-delivery
platform combining human intelligence with award-winning technology for the
most trusted market data in the industry. The BrandIntel data helps
businesses validate critical business decisions, uncover new opportunities
for value creation, and get closer to customers. BrandIntel works with
Fortune 1000 companies and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada, with
offices in the United States.
Contact Information: CONTACT: Alicia Libucha For BrandIntel 781-782-5703 alicia_libucha@lpp.com