Car commercials are littered with awards — prizes assuring a vehicle’s quality, dependability and performance that come from familiar names like Consumer Digest, Kelley Blue Book and J.D. Power.

But these commercials almost always gloss over the actual details of these awards, leaving consumers to wonder what exactly makes these cars award-worthy — and whether or not they should buy into the hype of car awards. You may be surprised to learn the criteria these companies use when creating their award lists — and how these awards make publications money.

What Companies Pay for Car Awards

Unless you go looking for it, you probably won’t see any disclosure about the kinds of financial incentives that publications request from companies that want to use their awards in advertising.

And there are occasional serious conflicts of interest, as well. Take, for example, the U.S. Global Quality Research System (or GQRS), an initial-quality survey that compared the quality and safety of leading car brands. The report was conducted a few times between 2007 and 2011, and each time Ford placed at the top, leading competitors Toyota and Honda by a significant margin. Ford went on to tout the findings in their marketing campaigns at the time.

What Ford didn’t mention — and some auto publications at the time also glossed over — was that the study, while conducted by an independent research and development group, was commissioned by Ford.

Ford — along with the R&D group that carried out the study — also never released the full report, only highlights.

How You Can Identify Legitimate Car Awards

In the world of car awards, there are possible conflicts of interest that make some awards less trustworthy than others. But it is possible to determine whether or not an award may be misleading, or if it is an independent accolade. If possible, you can look for obvious conflicts of interest or instances where a company charges certain brands to enter.

Consumer Digest, for example, charges companies that want to advertise their award around $25,000 to $35,000 per award. Consumer Reports (no relation) estimated that GM, which had 15 cars place on Consumer Digest’s Best Buy List in 2010, paid around $385,000 to Consumer Digest.

Others, like J.D. Power & Associates, offer car companies a service designed to improve their car’s award rankings. J.D. Power also charges a fee for companies wanting to use their awards to advertise a car.

These payments aren’t necessarily a conflict of interest — J.D. Power says that the company maintains strict boundaries between its licensing and consulting divisions — and serve as a way for these companies to make money off of brand comparisons and end-of-year best of lists. These fees do however, raise some questions — like whether or not a list can be fully independent when it benefits from big brands winning, or if the process is fair to smaller brands who may not be able to afford the costs.

All of this isn’t to say that there aren’t legitimate ads floating around. Some organizations take their editorial independence seriously, and operate in a way that minimizes the chance of a conflict of interest.

Motor Trend, which once awarded the BMW Series 5 with the title of Import Car of the Year, doesn’t charge a fee to advertisers. Consumer Reports doesn’t even allow companies to use their awards in advertisements.

Other trustworthy awards may include those won by BMW, like the World Car of the Year award, which is selected by a jury of 82 independent car journalists from around the world. Other forms of recognition featured on local TV ads, like Years of Service or Dealer of the Year, may simply show professionalism among car businesses and are very unlikely to be fabricated for exposure.

The Good and the Bad of Car Awards

Car award advertising isn’t always free from conflicts of interest. Many publications producing end-of-year lists expect companies to pay to use their awards in advertising — and some even offer services designed to improve a brand’s rating on their own lists.

But there are car awards that don’t take fees from car companies and take their editorial independence seriously.

Separating out the good from the bad may, however, take a bit of research.