CONSUMER Power

If you think word of mouth isn't powerful, look again. A new survey released by Nielsen shows just how powerful each of us are compared to traditional advertising. The data, part of the Nielsen Global Survey, was compiled by surveying 26,486 Internet users in 47 different countries. Participants were asked about the level of trust they place on a variety of different forms of marketing. When asked, "To what extent do you trust the following forms of advertising?" here are their top answers:

• 78% Recommendations from consumers
• 63% Newspapers
• 61% Consumer opinions posted online
• 60% Brand websites
• 56% Television
• 56% Magazines
• 54% Radio
• 49% Brand sponsorships
• 49% Email I signed up for

So the moral of this story is how much attention are you paying on blogs, bloggers, the customer experience vs. your advertising? Because if it were me, I would do everything in the word to pay attention to the the customer's experience and the stories they will tell about that.

http://www.nielsen.com/media/2007/pr_071001.html