90% of Consumers Trust Opinions of Friends; Brand Trust Shows Improvement Too!

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 by Andy Beal

90% of Consumers Trust Opinions of Friends; Brand Trust Shows Improvement Too!

One of the core messages in my book Radically Transparent came courtesy of Edelman data which demonstrated that consumers overwhelmingly trusted recommendations from "a person like yourself."

Two years after that data was released, new numbers from Nielsen suggest that trust in others has increased dramatically. In fact, 90% of consumers now trust recommendations from people they know.

The chart below demonstrates the Nielsen numbers from 2007 (in yellow) and the point difference in 2009.

For example, in 2007, 78% trusted recommendations from people known. In 2009, that number grew by 12 percentage points to 90%.

What’s interesting is that brand sponsored/built content is making great improvements in trust. However, it’s yet another nail in the coffin of traditional media–trust in newspaper opinions actually declined!

(Hat-tip @ChrisWinfield)