Marketers, before moving your entire advertising budget to online media, consider this:

A new survey shows marketers may be better off with a traditional newspaper ad or television spot, at least if you’re interested in building trust with customers. Good old word of mouth is even better, ranking as the most powerful tool in winning consumer trust, the survey by Nielsen suggests.

Here’s a glimpse of the results from Nielsen’s twice-yearly survey conducted among nearly 27,000 Internet users in 47 markets. 

To what extent do you trust the following forms of advertising?
    Recommendations from consumers 78%
    Newspapers 63%
    Consumer opinions posted online 61%
    Brand websites 60%
    Television 56 %
    Magazines 56%
    Radio 54%
    Brand Sponsorships 49%
    Email I signed up for 49%
    Ads before movies 38%
    Search engine ads 34%
    Online banner ads 26%
    Text ads on mobile phones 18%

So where is word-of-mouth the most powerful? Asia-Pacific, according to the study.

“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%),” the study said.

Europeans, however, aren’t so trusting of their fellow consumers. Lithuania, Italy and Denmark posted the lowest results when asked about consumer recommendations.

(Photo: Reuters / Serena and Venus Williams)