Millennials, representing 85 to 90 million buyers, are a key consumer target for US car manufacturers, but which brands are possibly wooing them into the showrooms the most these days?
Toyota is the car brand with the most purchase consideration by millennials in the new vehicle market. Not only does Toyota enjoy the highest consideration among younger car buyers, they have also had the largest improvement in purchase consideration within the auto sector among this demographic over the past 60 days.
Half of the top 10 millennial ranking are American-based car brands.
Toyota’s youth-oriented offshoot line, Scion, launched a new national ad campaign in February, “Make Every Second Count.” Scion’s Motivate program debuted last October, inviting applicants to submit their career passions and the resources needed to achieve their goals, with semi-finalist announcements running up throughout the spring.
Following Toyota is Ford, which premiered a millennial-focused campaign recently promoting the Fusion, Focus and Fiesta. According to the Detroit Free Press, in 2012, 28% of Fusion buyers were younger than 36 years old compared with 22% the previous year.
Just behind Toyota in millennial purchase consideration improvement in the last 60 days is Nissan. Nissan has been aggressively promoting the fully-redesigned 2013 Sentra model in a series of Robert Downey Jr.-narrated ads, competing with the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla for youth dollars.
Rounding out the top 10 for millennial purchase consideration are Honda (number 3 and now in its 12 year sponsoring an annual Top 40 music tour under the Civic banner), Chevrolet, Nissan, Volkswagen, Dodge, Jeep, Subaru and GM.
All major car brands were measured with YouGov BrandIndex’s Consideration score, which asks respondents: "When you are in the market next to purchase a car or truck, from which of the following brands would you consider purchasing?” Results were screened for adults age 18 – 34.
Purchase Consideration: Adults 18-34
Purchase Consideration Improvement: Adults 18-34
