How healthy are your dealership's brands — or the brand of a dealership you may be considering buying? Answering that question was the goal of a study released at the Automotive News Retail Forum: NADA.
Automotive News, in partnership with data powered by Cox Automotive, presented Brand Profiles, broken down by luxury and nonluxury brands.
The study is based on consumers' online activities on Cox Automotive properties such as Kelley Blue Book, Autotrader and Dealer.com websites. It looked at behavioral engagement, in terms of how actively brands were researched and shopped, as well as — using KBB.com's trade-in valuation tool — brand loyalty, defections and conquest. It also examined attitudinal perceptions, via surveys, to see how brands were perceived in terms of value, quality, safety and driving performance, for example.
"If you're behaviorally healthy, you're on the consideration list" of shoppers, said George Seretis, senior manager of strategic insights at Cox Automotive. "If you're attitudinally healthy, you have an advantage against others on the list."
The goal was to see which brands are doing a good job of getting considered by shoppers, which are converting shoppers into buyers — and how that is changing over time. The study focused on data at the end of 2017 vs. year-earlier results.
Brand fitness
A brand can be healthy even if its sales aren't huge. Low-volume brands with disproportionately strong perceptions "punch above their weight," Seretis said. They include Subaru, Ram, Volvo, Mazda and Genesis. "As Genesis adds models, especially in key segments, it's well positioned from an attitudinal standpoint to benefit" from increased engagement, he said.
Brands can be fit in other ways, too, with loyal customers, momentum in the market or strong models in key segments.
Take loyalty. Ram led all nonluxury brands in terms of loyalty, with Ford and Chevrolet also in the top five, reflecting high loyalty rates among truck buyers. The other two in the top five, Toyota and Honda, are full-line makers "who compete well across their whole lineup," Seretis said.
Fitness can vary by nameplate across a brand. For instance, Ford brand benefits from being strongest in the high-volume, high-margin pickup segment: Its F-150 is first in its segment in model attitudinal perceptions. The Mustang is third in its segment and the Taurus fifth in its. But Ford's other nameplates rank lower.
In contrast, every vehicle in Honda's more-limited lineup ranks first in its segment in attitudinal perception except for the Ridgeline, which is second, and the Pilot, which is third. In behavioral engagement, four of the eight nameplates in Honda's lineup rank first in their segment, vs. only three of Ford's 10.
Among luxury brands, Audi and Lexus are strong in perceptions, but attitudinally different. "Lexus has pockets of strength, while Audi is more uniformly strong," Seretis said, adding that Audi's scores were notably weaker a few years ago.
Improvements
Among nonluxury brands, the top five that improved in engagement in 2017 were Ram, Hyundai, Dodge, Chrysler and Honda. The top five improvers in terms of perception were Kia, Mazda, Fiat, Honda and Chevrolet. And the top five which improved in loyalty were Mini, Fiat, Jeep, Mazda and Honda.
For luxury brands, the top five 2017 improvers in engagement were Alfa Romeo, Infiniti, Jaguar, Acura and Mercedes-Benz. In terms of perception, they were Porsche, Acura, Audi, Volvo and Mercedes-Benz. And in loyalty: Jaguar, Buick, Acura, Audi and Porsche. a
