Lorraine Explains: Do car awards close the deal?
Look for the tiaras – just make sure you know who put them there
Buying a car means immersing yourself in a bewildering sea of information: makes, models, warranties, safety features, engine sizes, trim levels, maintenance costs, prices, taxes, added features, and how to work all the cool gizmos lurking behind that screen on the dash.
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If a car you’re considering has a Best in Class sash hanging from it like a pageant winner, does that make your job easier? Do industry awards mean anything to consumers, and do manufacturers care when they win them? Do they drive sales?
The answer is yes, yes, yes, and hell yes. And, it depends. Neil Bouwmeester, Marketing Director for Mazda Canada says, “ The fact of the matter is that prestigious awards like AJAC Car of the Year or Guide de L’Auto in Quebec provide a reason to believe for consumers; it’s not just Mazda telling people our vehicles are among the best in the industry; third-party journalists believe it too.”
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He makes an important distinction that buyers should pay attention to: all awards are not created equal. Rigorous, wide-ranging third-party testing across a broad spectrum of vehicles under transparent guidelines can make the honour a beacon for consumers and a great selling point for a manufacturer.
Marissa Hunter is VP of Marketing for North America at Stellantis (formerly Fiat Chrysler Automobiles). “We’re incredibly proud of these expert, third-party accolades and appreciate the credible validation they provide. When done correctly, they can thoroughly measure Stellantis vehicles against competitors and validate our efforts to design, build and deliver best-in-class products for our current and prospective customers.” Like Bouwmeester, her words are chosen carefully to reflect the importance of not just the prestige of the awards, but that they were assessed properly.
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Canada’s Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC) has made sweeping changes to how they denote their car of the year awards. In the past, manufacturers paid for each entry, and consideration was given only to vehicles that were new or substantially changed. You weren’t always seeing a good representation of all vehicles, but you had little way of knowing who was sitting that year out. Now, manufacturers pay a flat membership fee (like I do, as a journalist member of AJAC) but their entire lineup qualifies for consideration.
As journalists are driving multiple press cars from multiple manufacturers all year round, it’s a far more rigorous — and representative — way to gauge the awards. AJAC president (and fellow Driving.ca writer) Stephanie Wallcraft says they are currently working towards “eliminating the membership fee structure entirely so that every vehicle sold in Canada qualifies every year, regardless of how much the OEM engages with AJAC.” They’ve come a long way, and this is definitely going to make those AJAC awards even more solid.
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The Mazda 3 has won AJAC’s Car of the Year in both 2020 and 2021. “Awards provide an excellent tool for our retail network to speak to customers on the showroom floor… and tangibly reinforce why our vehicles were selected for accolades. They truly engage our awards and leverage them further as a ‘reason to believe’,” says Bouwmeester. If an award is recognized by the consumer as coming from a legitimate source, it’s another asset for a seller to use.
It doesn’t take too much digging to see what should qualify as “legitimate”. As a consumer, it should be part of your research to know which accolades are truly won, and which might be bought. It sounds crass, but it happens all the time. Consumer Reports is a highly respected outlet that purchases all the vehicles they test, making them unfettered by manufacturer pressure or interference. Put that beside the easily-confused soundalike Consumers Digest , which “ charges around USD$35,000 for an initial award and $25,000 for each one after that.” Everybody has the internet at their fingertips nowadays. Google anything you aren’t sure of.
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Manufacturers capitalize on prestigious wins like AJAC and NACOTY (North American Car of the Year) because they know that the journalists who put these vehicles through their paces know what they’re doing, and the judging goes through multiple rounds and highly detailed assessments. Social media is an obvious outreach point, with Mazda “identify[ing] audience pools of people that are close to in-market or are currently shopping for a new car, and serve them a relevant message relating to a current award.” They’ve found that if people aren’t in the market, the awards are less relevant.
Showroom signage, social media campaigns and advertising campaigns will tout significant wins. As Hunter points out, “certainly non-traditional, but hard-to-miss is Ram Truck brand’s 10-story tall banner currently on our Auburn Hills, Michigan corporate headquarters (next to a major Michigan highway) celebrating its ‘Three-Peat’ as Motor Trend Magazine’s “Truck of the Year.”
Canadian consumers benefit from awards that are based on our market. AutoTrader, Canadian Black Book, Vincentric, Guide de L’Auto, and AJAC are some of the best sources for our market that provide much-needed information about the vehicles we drive.
So, look for the tiaras. Just know who put them there.