Ford or Toyota? Which one do you think is the best? As of now Ford looks like the Pied Piper. Toyota has slipped to the second position and Ford Motors wins the gold medal as per results shown by the Automotive Brand Indicator (ABI) put out by Kelley Blue Book, the United States’ largest automotive vehicle valuation company. The issues in its new cars and then the recalls must have brought bad luck for Toyota.

“Toyota had a very tough first quarter this year due to the recall crisis, and the latest Automotive Brand Indicator (ABI) results from Kelley Blue Book Market Intelligence reflect Toyota’s struggles in all areas in which the ABI tracks,” said James Bell, executive market analyst for Kelley Blue Book and kbb.com. “Meanwhile, Ford is the darling of the industry right now with exciting new product and marketing initiatives, and undoubtedly they were able to overtake the top spot in Q1 2010 due to problems Toyota experienced at the time. However, Toyota is slowly crawling back into consumer’s good graces, especially with its continued enticing incentive offers. Even if Toyota reclaims its top position in Q2 2010, the fight to see who is king of the hill has certainly gotten more crowded.”

Kelley Blue Book’s ABI is a standardized measure providing an all-inclusive summary of how consumers analyze OEMs. The ABI specifies how a car brand is performing and how well it accepted relative to the market and its key contenders. The ABI index and ranking data can be used as an analytical tool, identifying key drivers to help car makers draw attention to areas in which they can perk up or leverage to increase their brand power. Not just that, ABI results can also help the car manufacturers find out where exactly they need to concentrate and where they need to put in marketing efforts so as to place their brands at a higher position in the current highly competitive car market.

“While some companies may track various forms of consideration, shopper activity or leads, Kelley Blue Book Market Intelligence’s all-new Automotive Brand Indicator is revolutionary in that it adds in consumer perception data from surveys and provides the additional advantage of showing an automakers’ performance relative to both the market and competition,” said Rick Wainschel, senior vice-president of market intelligence and brand strategy for Kelley Blue Book’s kbb.com.

He added that “The ABI results combined with detailed analysis from Kelley Blue Book’s Market Intelligence and Advanced Analytics teams can help automakers gain a better understanding of where their brand stands in the marketplace, strategically hone their marketing plans and ultimately, improve new-car sales.” The Kelley Blue Book Market Intelligence tracks 37 car brands and can provide quarterly ABI results upon request by the car makers. Deep-dive analytics and consulting also are available.

That was how KBB helps car makers. Don’t you think it helps consumers too? Originally, it was available only to those in the car industry. But now, both a consumer edition and an online edition are available for the general public. It helps steer people away from something that’s not so nice. Information on car pricing, trade-in values, the ratings and reviews get published.

The Kelly Blue Book has become one of the leading assessment guides for automobile price quotes. Auto insurance groups often use it as a standard for reviewing the market value of a car that has been involved in a collision in order to determine whether it’s worthwhile to fix the car or whether it should be written off as a total loss.