You remember when you went to the movies and there were
no ads? Today, you sit down with your popcorn and you’re in for at
least 3 to 5 minutes of advertising. Have you ever thought how much
you “trust” the products that are in those ads. Well, if you believe
Nielsen and the Global Online Consumer Survey – apparently just over half (52%) of us trust those ads. That was actually really surprising to me.
So, Nielsen released this study earlier last month, and it reported on
a number of other things – namely that “Trust” of media is on the rise
for consumers. 70% of the users they surveyed said they “completely”
or “somewhat” trusted brand Web sites and consumer opinions posted on
the Web. Of course “Word of Mouth and Recommendations” scored big with
nearly 90%+ of people saying that they “trusted” that. As a quick
side note, weirdly, there were 10% who said they “Don’t Trust Much” or
“Don’t Trust At All” Word Of Mouth from their friends. Who are these
people? And who are they hanging out with?
Anyway, one of the interesting things that wasn’t necessarily pointed
out – was how quickly the curve drops for the other media. Only 41% of
those looking at your Search Marketing Advertising said they trusted
those ads. That’s amazing – and is something that should make Search
Marketers everywhere cringe just a little. That’s right, more people
trust the ads before movies than trust Search Marketing Advertising.
This chart also got me to thinking about where we put our money in our
media spend vs. our content marketing strategy. So, I know this isn’t
completely scientific. But let’s look at the data from Nielsen as
compared to average budgets.
Here is the data from the Nielsen Study – the percentage is how many said they “completely” trust this form of advertising:
Recommendations from people I know 34%
Brand Websites 13%
Consumer Opinions Posted 13%
Editorial content such as newspaper article 10%
Brand sponsorships 9%
Ads on TV 8%
Ads in Newspapers: 7%
Ads in magazines 6%
Ads on radio 6%
Billboards and other outdoor 5%
Emails I signed up for 7%
Ads before movies 5%
Ads served in a Search engine result 4%
Online video 3%
Banner Ads 3%
Text ads on mobile phones2%
So, if you believe the Datran Media study posted by MediaPost earlier this year,
the top four budget increases we put into place for 2009 were 1. Email,
2. Search, 3. Social Media and 4. Display. Yeah, well….one out of
four isn’t necessarily all bad – right?
But more importantly, take a look at those numbers and compare them to
your current media budget allocation. How are you doing on the “trust
index”. Interestingly, there is another study, highlighted in this Emarketer post in May
- done by TNS Media Intelligence. They asked what was the “most
trusted” media (as opposed to advertising). Now this study was done
of Internet Users (and the below results are just U.S.) so there’s some
skew – but the results are also very interesting.
Recommendations by friends 48%
Online News 38%
Newspapers 34%
TV News 33%
Product comparison sites 31%
Industry Websites/expert reviews 29%
Company Websites 27%
Industry magazines 24%
User forums 20%
Company brochures 18%
Private blogs 9%
So, after seeing these two charts together, I think we can all
agree that Goal #1 is getting our product and service into a trusted
network where we can be recommended by members of that network. And,
of course, we’ve got to make sure we’re keeping customers happy so they
talk about us to their friends. But, then I dare say that as we start
to look at our marketing budgets for the rest of the year – as
stretched as they are – we may want to look content, content and more
content as real drivers of trust in our messsage. Our Web site, social
networking, consumer opinion sites and content online is a high driver
of trust. And when we can get our content being distributed in social
networks, covered by online news – and covered by Industry websites and
expert reviews – this is a key in building that “trust index”.
And, in today’s market place – “trust” is a really nice place for our brand to be
