Toyota is the greenest auto marketer of 2012, according to a recent Nielsen analysis of consumer awareness, TV advertising response and social media buzz. The automaker brought home the third annual Nielsen Automotive Green Marketer of the Year award, which was presented today at the Los Angeles International Auto Show.

Toyota won by leveraging their effective Prius family ad campaigns as well as their social media events.  More than half (53%) of the Nielsen survey’s respondents were aware of Toyota’s green marketing initiatives. In addition, Toyota’s campaigns helped cultivate their strong green enthusiast base which drove the most positive online sentiment among the nominees, surpassing the Auto Average by 64 percent.

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 marketing initiatives. Other finalists for the award included Ford, Honda, Chevrolet and Nissan.

Methodology

In order 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 2,600 consumers’ cross-media awareness and perceptions of environmental messages by automotive brand
• Response data from 6 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, based on over 115,000 social media messages

Auto manufacturers that ran any national TV ads with green themes between October 2011 and September 2012 were eligible for consideration.