Voting made ultimately easier
THIS YEAR marks the 14th staging of the Auto Focus People’s Choice Awards, a yearly search and recognition of the most popular vehicles from the country’s automobile manufacturers and importers.
It has been a long learning process for the awards’ creators and organizers to come up with the most accurate method to determine the motoring public’s prevalent choices.
For 2018, the equation of combining actual votes and unit sales with valuation of 80 percent for actual votes and 20 percent for the vehicle sales to determine individual scores shall hold steadfast with the actual nationwide registration figures of the Land Transportation Office (LTO) still the basis to determine actual sales.
However, voting would be done so much easier with the application of the ‘top of mind’ principle. The online voting will be simplified with voters having to enter just one to five picks for Automobile of the Year in either or both Standard and Premium/ Luxury classifications in entering their daily votes.
Organizers of this yearly polling exercise see the new mode of choice as simpler and better. Top-of-mind awareness and immediate preferences are keys to consider a car model’s popularity. And cutting down on the choices and process makes it ultimately easier to register one’s choice coupled by the fact that the voting can be done via handheld and mobile gadgets.
In tandem with the AFPCA, the Auto Focus Media’s Choice Awards (AFMCA) will be undertaken. The AFMCA seeks to acknowledge the automobile industry’s continuing efforts to offer car buyers and owners the best possible products. It gives honors to models that demonstrate the top features, value and performance as adjudged by a panel consisting of motoring media professionals and practitioners. Awards are for those chosen for best in Design, Engine Performance, Safety Features and Valuefor-Money for each of the 12 Standard and 10 Premium/ Luxury model categories.
But, with very stringent criteria applied, the highest vote does not necessarily merit an award. To nail a win, a model must exceed at least half of the total media votes cast within a specific model/ award category. No winner will be declared unless the 50-percent majority vote is achieved. This single factor is what is seen to give the AFMCA award of much value.
According to auto industry players and observers the inception of the People’s Choice Awards in 2005 and the counterpart Media’s Choice Awards in 2008, has provided all stakeholders, the car-buying public, auto makers and distributors, and motoring media, a channel of expression, communication and feedback.
Public voting to determine this year’s Automobile of the Year started on June 22. Voting details are on Facebook / Twitter / Instagram @AutoFocusPHL or direct on the voting website www. autofocus.com.ph/afpca2018.