'Word-of-mouth' the most powerful selling tool: Nielsen Global Survey

Traditional media advertising is still more credible worldwide than ads on search engines, web site banners and mobile phones, a global research agency says.

Despite an ever-expanding array of advertising platforms and sources, consumers around the world still place their highest levels of trust in other consumers, according to a recent global Nielsen Internet survey. Conducted twice a year among 26,486 Internet users in 47 markets from Europe, Asia Pacific, the Americas and the Middle East, Nielsen most recently surveyed consumers on their attitudes toward thirteen types of advertising – from conventional newspaper and television ads to branded web sites and consumer-generated content. The Nielsen survey found that overall, consumers trust other consumers above all else and 78% of respondents said they trusted – either completely or somewhat – the recommendation of other consumers.

"Advertisers around the world are able to reach consumers across an increasingly diverse range of media platforms," said David McCallum, the global managing director for Nielsen's Customized Research Services. "Even so, the recommendation of someone else remains the most trusted sources of information when consumers decide which products and services to buy. And even though new media technologies are playing a role in 'globalizing' society, many purchasing decision are still based on firmly held national and cultural attitudes. Furthermore, given that nothing travels faster than bad news – with estimates that reports of bad experiences outnumber good service reports by as many as 5:1 – the importance of responsive, high quality customer services is yet again highlighted."

Most trusting
The Nielsen survey found Filipinos and Brazilians (67%) to be the most trusting overall of all forms of advertising, while trust among Danes (28%), Italians (32%), Lithuanians (34%) and Germans (35%) were the lowest in the world.

The Nielsen survey also found that while new platforms like the Internet are beginning to catch up with older media in terms of ad revenues, traditional advertising channels continue to retain the public's trust. Ads in newspapers rank second worldwide among all media categories, at 63% overall, while television, magazines and radio each ranked above 50%. Such advertising scored best in Latin American and most poorly in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EEMEA) regions.

Although consumer recommendations are the most credible form of advertising among 78% of the study's respondents, Nielsen research found significant national and regional differences regarding this and other mediums. Word of mouth, for example, generates considerable levels of trust across much of Asia Pacific. Six of the top ten markets that rely most on "recommendations from consumers" are in this region, including Hong Kong (93%), Taiwan (91%) and Indonesia (89%). At the other end of the global spectrum, Europeans, generally, are least likely to trust when they hear from other consumers, particularly in Denmark (62%) and Italy (64%).

"The advertising industry has to do a better job at communicating the value it brings to consumers," said Jonathan Carson of Nielsen BuzzMetrics, a service of The Nielsen Company. "In developing markets, advertising is seen more as a conveyer of useful information. In more developed markets, people don't need it to play that role. They have too much information already."

Reliability
The reliability of consumer opinions posted online – which rated third, at 61% overall – also varies throughout the world, scoring highest in North America and Asia at 66% and 62% respectively. Among individual markets, web-based opinions such as Blogs are the most trusted in South Korea (81%) and Taiwan (76%), while scoring lowest, at 35%, in Finland.

On the other hand, only consumer-generated media and branded web sites were trusted by more than half of all consumers. Search engine and banner advertising, along with text ads on mobile phones, each scored at the bottom of the list with fewer than 35% of total respondents. Regionally, Latin American consumers found these ads most believable, while Europeans trusted them the least. "The positive thing about these new digital channels is that they are extremely scalable," Carson said. "You can get a very high reach at a low cost, compared with traditional media. But it's tempting to abuse it."