Kia registered the biggest increase in ad awareness last month, making it the top performing car maker according to YouGov.

Data from the YouGov Brand Index, which tracks perceptions toward brands on a daily basis, shows the South Korean carmaker saw an improvement of 1.5 percentage points, going from 16.3 to 17.8 between February 1 and 28. 

The boost comes from the introduction of the all-new fifth-generation Sportage. Its marketing campaign includes a 30-second TV spot, which depicts the car driven in an urban setting and highlights its hybrid technology.

YouGov’s Brand Index data also reveals that Kia saw its ‘Buzz’ score, which tracks if consumers have heard something positive or negative about a brand, grow during the same period. Its score rose from 3.3% to 4.4% (+1.1 percentage points), indicating that the share of positive discussions around the brand also increased during this period. 

Kia’s new Sportage SUV is tipped to be a “key player” in the Korean car maker’s drive to exceed 100,000 registrations in 2022.

The Sportage, which has reigned supreme as the AM Awards Used Car of the Year every year since 2016, continued it meteoric sales rise in its previous generation.

The fourth-generation of Kia’s popular SUV delivered 197,626 registrations between 2016 and 2021, well over double the 95,326 achieved by the third-generation model on sale from 2010 to 2016.

The latest generation Sportage is being offered in petrol, turbodiesel, 48-volt mild hybrid, hybrid and – from Q2 – plug-in hybrid (PHEV) guise.

Prices start at £26,745 in a UK line-up featuring ‘2’, GT-Line, 3, 4 and the flagship GT-Line S edition trim levels.