London - Consumers don't understand the current display of CO2 and mpg on car ads. We Are Futureproof is pushing for the introduction of colour-coded labels on car advertisements, similar to those used in showrooms and the energy efficiency labels on white goods.
Just 3 in 10 people can understand vital information about fuel economy and carbon dioxide emissions in the format currently shown on car adverts (31%)
It's clear people don't understand what the raw CO2 and fuel economy numbers on car adverts mean, or how different cars compare in terms of 'grams per kilometre', so it's not enough just stating these figures in billboards and magazine adverts
Instead, the public needs to know how a car compares with others in terms of fuel efficiency and pollution, and our survey shows that a colour-coded scale is much easier to understand.
We recently commissioned a poll from YouGov to see which format consumers found easier to understand. YouGov surveyed more than 2,000 people who were presented with an advert carrying CO2 and fuel economy data in the current format and an advert with the new colour-coded label.
Here are the two adverts they looked at:
Current style car ad
Car ad with new colour-coded label
The results show that more than half of people correctly identified the efficiency of a fictional new car called ‘Marko’ when the information was shown in a colour-coded chart, compared with less than one third when the information was presented in plain writing (56 per cent vs 31 per cent).
The number of people answering ‘don’t know’ reduced by nearly half for the new label – down from 41 per cent for the plain writing format to just 22 per cent for the colour-coded chart.
Four times as many people say they the find colour-coded format easier to understand (67% vs 16%)
When asked which format they preferred, two thirds of people (67 per cent) chose the colour-coded format, four times as many as chose the larger, but less clearly presented plain writing (16 per cent).
WRFP also believes that the car industry - not just consumers and the environment - would benefit from the introduction of clearer information on fuel economy.
Recession-hit consumers need to see clearer information on fuel economy when choosing a car
Recent figures from the car industry show that in the first two months of 2009, new car sales were down by more than 20 per cent on 2008 across the industry as a whole, but that car buyers are keen to seek out more economical models. Sales within the ‘mini’ class of smaller cars are 40 per cent up, in contrast to the rest of the market, but people need more to go on than just the size of the car.
It's not simply a case of small cars being good and big cars being bad. If the format of the efficiency information changed, it would make it much easier for consumers to see that within every class of car, such as family estates, vehicles can have very different running costs.
Other evidence shows that car drivers are keen to reduce their driving costs but are confused about the information given. Consumers increasingly cite fuel economy and running costs as an important consideration when choosing a new car. But, in the absence of clear information that is easy to understand, many drivers mistakenly assume that vehicle size is the only major factor determining fuel consumption and don’t understand how the metrics ‘mpg’ and ‘grams CO2 per kilometre’ relate to running costs.
