Auto makers have been unable make any significant gains persuading millennials to consider purchasing their brands when shopping for a new car in the next 12 months.

Cadillac and Buick have had the most success in gaining purchase consideration among millennial men over the past year, but neither brand’s gains are significant, according to YouGov BrandIndex data. Leading auto brands have had even less success making gains with millennial women, who account for 53% of car buyers in their age bracket, said Chantel Lenard, director of U.S. marketing for Ford and Lincoln in a recent Wall Street Journal interview.

Jeep, Buick And Cadillac Gain With Millennial Men

Jeep, Buick and Cadillac have had much better luck on a different metric with millennial men –YouGov BrandIndex’s Buzz score, which asks respondents: "If you've heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news or word of mouth, was it positive or negative?" Buzz score is measured on a range from -100 to 100 with zero being neutral.

Jeep jumped 29 points with millennial men from the same point last year. In that time period, Jeep’s Buzz score rose from -13 to 16, putting it in the number seven spot of car brands with the best male millennial Buzz scores right now.

Buick made the second largest Buzz score gains with 17 points, followed by Cadillac with 16.

Purchase Consideration

Toyota is the leading auto brand that millennial-age men and women car buyers would consider purchasing the next time they are in the market. 31% of millennials say they would consider the brand. It is notable that Toyota hasn’t made any gains or losses in this metric in the past year, yet still holds onto the best percentage score.

Honda and Ford have the second highest purchase consideration scores for both genders respectively, although Honda would be considered significantly more with women (29%) than men (21%).

After the initial three brands, the genders show some marked differences in their purchase consideration choices.

• BMW (16%), Buick (14%) and Chrysler (13%) only appear on men’s list of car brands with the highest purchase consideration.
• Jeep (16%), Kia (13%) and Subaru (13%) only appear on women’s list of car brands with the highest purchase consideration.

Buzz Score
Buzz score bring even more variance between millennial genders.

• Toyota garners very high Buzz scores with both millennial-aged genders – for women, it is tops with a 22 score, and tied with Ford at a 25 score for men.
• Subaru comes in third place for men with twice the Buzz score (21 vs. 10) than women. Subaru is number six for women.
• Honda has the second highest Buzz score for women – 20 – but there are four brands ahead of it on the men’s list (Ford, Toyota, Subaru and Audi).
• Nissan scores third on the top 10 Buzz list for women, whereas it doesn’t appear on the men’s list at all.
• Four luxury brands show up only on the men’s top 10 list: Audi (20), Mercedes (15), Cadillac (13) and Acura (12).
• Nissan (14), Chevrolet (10), Volkswagen (8) and Lexus (8) only appear on women’s list of car brands with the highest Buzz scores.

All of the major car manufacturers were measured with two of YouGov BrandIndex’s scores: Buzz ("If you've heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news or word of mouth, was it positive or negative?"), and Purchase Consideration (“When you are next in the market to purchase products in this specific category, from which of the following would you consider purchasing?”). All respondents are adults age 18 through 34 years old.