Automotive Brand Awards 2012 winners revealed

The Audi A3, Mercedes-Benz Concept Style Coupé and Volkswagen Up were amongst the winners of the 'Best of Best' awards at this year's Automotive Brand Awards.

The difficult job of picking this year's winners went to a panel of representatives from the media, design and brand communications world along with universities and academies. The chosen few were: freelance journalist Masatsugu Arimoto; freelance author and journalist Jürgen Lewandowski and Head of Transportation Interior Design at Hochschule Reutlingen, Professor Andrea Lipp.

Also included in this year's panel were Managing Director at Plex GmbH Dietmar Mühr; Head of Mobility and Transportation Design at Strate Collège Paris, Philip Nemeth; Freelance Journalist Wolfgang Peters; Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Auto motor und Sport magazine, Birgit Primer; Senior Vice President Brand Strategy and Marketing Communications at Deutsche Telekom AG, Hans-Christian Schwingen and General Manager of the German Design Council, Andrej Kupetz.

Over 350 entries were made into 11 different categories and a panel of judges selected 15 winners for each. 11 ‘Best of Best' winners were then chosen, while others received awards for ‘Innovation of the Year', ‘Team of the Year', ‘Brand of the Year' and ‘Agency of the Year'.

From the ‘Interior' category the awards went to the Audi A3, Kia c'eed, BMW's 6 Series Gran Coupé and 3 Series Limousine, MINI Roadster, Fiat Panda, Hyundai i30, BMW 3 Series, Peugeot 208, Volkswagen's Cross Coupé and the Up. Mercedes-Benz received four awards for its A-Class, SL-Class, B-Class and CLS Shooting Brake interiors.

The ‘Exterior' category encompassed vehicles in all classes, two-wheelers, design refinement and commercial vehicles. Volkswagen's Up grabbed another award within this category, with the Aston Martin Vanquish, Audi A3, BMW 6 Series Gran Coupé, Mini Roadster, Mercedes-Benz A-Class, SL-Class and CLS Shooting Brake, Fiat Panda, Hyundai i30, Kia C'eed, Peugeot 208 and Volkswagen Beetle picking up the rest of the automobile awards. 

The 'Concept' car category saw awards go to the Mercedes-Benz Concept Style Coupé and F 125, Smart's forvision and for-us, Hyundai's HED 8, Kia's GT, the Mazda Takeri, Infiniti's Emerg-E, Nissan's Terra, the Honda Concept Car and the Volkswagen Cross-Coupé. BMW received two awards for its i8 Spyder – interior and exterior – and one combined award for its i3 and i8 concepts.

The ‘Best of Best' awards went to the Audi A3 in the ‘Interior' category, the Mercedes-Benz Concept Style Coupé in the ‘Concept' category and the Volkswagen up! in the ‘Exterior'. A ‘Special Mention' went to the Kia C'eed within the ‘Interior' category.

The jury voted in eight other categories: Campaign, Brand Design, Events, Connectivity, Digital, Architecture, Corporate Publishing and Parts and Accessories.

The awards will be presented on 27 September prior to the 2012 Paris motor show, while there will also be an online exhibition.

By Rufus Thompson