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IRVINE, Calif., Jan. 20, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — Ace Metrix, a leading video advertising analytics company, recently announced Mazda North American Operations (MNAO) as their 2015 Automotive Brand of the Year in the non-luxury category. The all-new Driving Matters campaign, created with advertising partner Garage Team Mazda, was the subject of positive feedback as Mazda’s overall brand scored 5.0 percent above the category norm. Likeability and Relevance were the top reasons viewers were able to relate to their ads and the messages within the “Driver’s Life” and “Bringing Baby Home” ads were named the single best thing about each ad.

“Communicating with our customers and understanding their wants and needs is the very foundation of our business, the better we can be at that, the better job we can do building a relationship with them,” said Russell Wager, vice president of marketing, MNAO. “We are honored to receive this recognition from Ace Metrix and feel that it validates our efforts in trying to engage with our customers in a way that they appreciate.”

Mazda’s creative success this year stems from delivering ads that are not only likeable, but easy to relate to. The Driving Matters campaign focuses on life events and daily routine, as enhanced by your relationship with your car. “Driver’s Life” and “Bringing Baby Home” are both about the cycle of life, one as told by a man going through life and one by new parents driving home with their newborn. Both are powered by Likeability and Relevance and performed better among those with children at home.

Ace Metrix scores every nationally airing television advertisement and the majority of digital video ads across 24 industries, 96 categories and is therefore uniquely qualified to report a brand’s overall effectiveness across the entire video advertising industry’s body of work over a year, as well as year-over-year. To qualify for Ace Metrix Brand of the Year, brands must have debuted five or more unique pieces of creative within a category containing more than 100 pieces of creative and five qualifying brands. Ace Metrix gathered more than 3.25 million responses, including nearly 2 million verbatim comments left optionally for the 6,500+ new television video ads in 2015. Each ad is scored against a unique panel of 500+ consumers, demographically balanced to the US census for age, gender and income. The Ace Score is the holistic measure of ad creative impact and includes data on attributes such as Persuasion, Likeability, Information, Attention, Change, Relevance, Desire and Watchability. Hundreds of qualitative consumer verbatim responses are collected for each ad and inform additional measures such as the Emotional Sentiment Index.

Founded in the belief that ad creative excellence drives brand performance, Ace Metrix provides technology, tools and insights that enable the advertising ecosystem to understand how and why video creative works with viewers. Advertisers, agencies and publishers rely on Ace Metrix to provide qualitative and quantitative measures, normative data and competitive insights that inform each phase of the creative lifecycle, resulting in advertising that consistently delivers results. The Company’s comprehensive suite of tools map to ad objectives including the creative impact of persuasion, breakthrough, emotional connection, and indicators of shareability. The Company is privately held and is backed by leading venture capital firms and industry leaders including Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Palomar Ventures, Leapfrog Ventures and WPP.

Mazda North American Operations is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., and oversees the sales, marketing, parts and customer service support of Mazda vehicles in the United States and Mexico through nearly 700 dealers. Operations in Mexico are managed by Mazda Motor de Mexico in Mexico City. For more information on Mazda vehicles, including photography and B-roll, please visit the online Mazda media center at www.mazdausamedia.com.

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SOURCE Mazda North American Operations