Word of Mouth - Powerful selling tool in India - AC Nielsen study

87 percent of Internet accessing Indians still trust recommendations from others over any other kind of advertising, making word-of-mouth advertising the most powerful tool in the industry today, according to a recent global Nielsen Internet survey.

India comes fourth among the top ten countries globally which trust in recommendations from consumers, with Hong Kong leading the list with 93 percent. Seven of the top ten markets that rely most on “recommendations from consumers” are in Asia.

Newspapers came in second (77%) on the list of advertising media that Indian consumers trust the most. Surprisingly consumer opinions posted online and brand websites came a little ahead of television advertising with 73 and 72 percent respectively. Television came in at number five with 65 percent of Indian respondents considering television advertising as trustworthy.

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 towards thirteen types of advertising – from conventional newspapers and television ads to branded web sites and consumer-generated content.

Word of Mouth is a powerful recommendation for Asians
Seven of the top 10 markets that relied on it hailed from Asia

Hong Kong 93%

Taiwan 91%

Indonesia 89%

India 87%

South Korea 87%

Philippines 86%

New Zealand 83%

Ireland 84%

Mexico 84%

UAE 84%


As a consumer one is exposed to advertising in various media but what touches ones chord is either a very innovative message or a product, which is good value for money. Word of mouth brings with it a big “trust” factor, which is quite often missing in other forms of advertising. Indians by nature, tend to believe a friend or an associate while evaluating a product,” said Sarang Panchal, Executive Director, Client Solutions, The Nielsen Company.

Ads in newspapers rank second (77 percent) in India and also globally among all media categories at 63 percent. Other traditional forms of advertising like television, magazines and radio each rank above 50 percent.

To What Extent Do You Trust
the Following Forms of Advertising? (India Figures) %



Recommendations from Consumers 87

Newspapers 77

Consumer opinions posted online 73

Brand Websites 72

Magazines 71

TV 65

Email I signed up for 58

Radio 55

Brand Sponsorships 52

Search Engine Ads 41

Ads before Movies 41

Online Banner Ads 38

Text Ads on Mobiles 24


The Nielsen survey found that new platforms like the Internet are beginning to slowly catch up with conventional media in terms of advertising revenues. Though the overall reach of Internet in India is yet to be widespread consumer opinions posted online and brand websites still make it to the list of top ten countries (at 3rd and 6th position respectively), which trust these unconventional forms of advertising. Global consumer opinions posted online make it to the third most trusted advertising form with 61 percent.

“This result clearly shows that Indians are not averse to new forms of advertising and is a welcome sign for marketers to explore different advertising opportunities, which are very cost effective too! Blogs and Social Networking sites are becoming a big tool in the western world to generate consumer opinion, especially regarding new product launches. Though in a nascent state and popular with only certain sections of the society, these have the potential to become an interesting advertising avenue for the marketers” added Panchal.

Top Five/Bottom Five - To what extent do you trust the following forms of advertising:

consumer opinions posted online

Korea 81%

Taiwan 76%

India 73%

Philippines 72%

Poland 72%

Italy 47%

Chile 47%

Estonia 46%

Lithuania 46%

Finland 35%


With 71 percent in India, magazines made it to the fifth slot as a medium that can be trusted. India is also the 9th country amongst the top ten countries, which trusts magazine advertising, according to the survey.

Radio, brand sponsorships, and emails that a respondent has signed up for inspired the trust of more than half the respondents with all of them scoring above 50 percent. Search engine ads (41%), Ads before movies (41%), Online Banner ads (38%), and Text ad on Mobiles (24%) are the least trusted forms of advertising in India.

Source: AC Nielsen website


Santosh

Comments

Anonymous said…
Good to discover your blog, Santosh.

Interesting to see that UAE is in the top 10 for word-of-mouth too.

Will have to see how best we can incorporate this insight in our creative strategies here in the UAE.

Word of mouth and word of mouse through forwards is huge these days in the time of Web 2.0.

farrukh
UAE Copywriter
mycysphere said…
Hi Farrukh,

Yeah. Pretty heartening to know that word-of-mouth is popular. I guess that is why we do find a lot of online 'virals' coming..especially in India market.

Cheers

Santosh
Unknown said…
Has anyone out there heard about WideCircles.com. It seems like a way better service then regular pay per click. Apparently they are using refering websites ( forums, blogs, wiki, etc. ) and have a viral word of mouth distributed approach to it which is engaging rather ther then interrupting customers. My friend told me he got over 500 visits from single post which cost him around $0.40c, within a few days. I am going to give them a try today . In case you are intrested here is it. http://widecircles.com?imt=3
Anonymous said…
there is something very special for anyone.

.............
Binu
Social Media Marketing

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