Ford rolled home with the 2^nd annual Nielsen Automotive Green Marketer of the Year award, which was presented today at the Los Angeles International Auto Show.

Ford was recognized for its successful ad campaigns embedding MPG messaging across most of their creatives from product launches to sales events. This effort coupled with campaigns featuring real people helped significantly increase positive consumer opinions and purchase consideration for the brand.  Ford’s ad campaigns also helped drive positive online sentiment, with 3 in 10 green-themed online discussions reflecting favorably on Ford.

The Nielsen Automotive Green Marketer of the Year Award recognizes the brand that made the greatest strides in gaining consumer awareness and positively shifting consumer perceptions for the automotive industry’s environmentally friendly initiatives. Other finalists for the award included Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, Toyota and Hyundai.

Methodology

To determine the finalists and winner, Nielsen leveraged three research studies to incorporate awareness levels and perceptions across media types. The studies included:

• A custom survey of nearly 7,000 consumers’ cross-media awareness and perceptions of environmental messages by automotive brand

• Response data from 2.5 million viewers of national television advertising collected by Nielsen’s ad effectiveness measurements service, focusing on green automotive ads

• Measuring social media “buzz” sentiment within green-related discussion threads

Auto manufacturers that ran any national TV ads with “green” themes between October 2010 and September 2011 were eligible for consideration.