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AutoPacific, a leading US automotive industry research house, recently
reported that Hyundai had the largest opinion improvement of nine major car
brands in its initial wave of Image and Consideration Tracking Research.
In the AutoPacific poll, which also evaluated Toyota, General Motors, Ford,
Honda, Nissan, VW, BMW and Chrysler Group, 1254 panelists responded to an
Internet survey concerning their opinion of these brands in the USA. The
survey’s key question was whether the respondent's opinion of a manufacturer had
changed in the last year. Over 5,000 verbatim comments were collected in
relation to opinion and attitude toward various aspects of a manufacturer’s
image.
Hyundai’s image improved by 32 percent, ahead of Toyota up 23 percent, Honda
19, GM 17 and Nissan up 13 percent.
AutoPacific analysts stated: “The surprise — or not so surprising — winner of
the most improved manufacturer was Hyundai. Comments about the performance of
Hyundai gave the brand credit for substantially improved styling, newly-found
high durability/quality/reliability, a strong value message and a great warranty
program. Positive comments outweighed negative comments by about four to one.”
Hyundai Motor Australia’s director of sales and marketing, Kevin McCann, said
“These impressive results are the latest of a number of such offshore
recognitions of Hyundai’s rapid rise to the top levels of quality and appeal and
they are being mirrored in Australia.
“Last year in the US, authoritative researcher JD Power and Associates ranked
Hyundai as the highest non-premium nameplate in its Initial Quality Study, only
topped by Porsche and Lexus, while BusinessWeek named Hyundai a top ‘100
Global Brand’ for 2006. Germany’s Auto Zeitung found that Hyundai was the
only brand to record 100 percent reliability in its Qualitäts Report 2006
Reliability Index measuring number of car breakdowns. Here, Getz is a two-time
winner of Australia’s Best Small Car award and both Santa Fe and Elantra are
Australia’s Best Car class silver medalists, as was Sonata V6 when launched in
2005.
“AutoPacific’s report is another example of how Hyundai is continuing to lift
its brand image closer to the excellence of its models with their quality,
design integrity and value,” Mr McCann said.
About AutoPacific
AutoPacific is a future-oriented automotive marketing and product-consulting
firm headquartered in Tustin, California, which has specialized in the analysis
and research of the automobile industry and its consumers for almost 20 years.
See AutoPacific website:
http://www.autopacific.com/index/news-app/story.728/title.autopacific-announces-automotive-brand-image-results
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