Indians trust opinions more than ads: survey

Despite the high hopes pinned on the internet by media houses and advertisers, word-of-mouth and editorial content in newspaper articles are still the most trusted form of advertising in India, a survey says.

In the latest quarterly Nielsen global online consumer survey, Indian 93 per cent of Indian respondents voted in favour of recommendations by acquaintances, followed by editorial content in newspaper articles (87 per cent) and brand websites (78 per cent).

''Personal recommendation and editorial content is seen as unbiased information about a product or service and plays a major role in the consumer decision-making process,'' Nielsen consumer research associate director Vatsala Pant said. ''The fact that brand websites - the most trusted form of advertiser-led advertising - follows on their heels in terms of trust should be quite encouraging for advertisers,'' he added.

The survey was conducted on more than 25,000 internet users in 50 countries across Europe, the Asia-Pacific, North and Latin America, and the Middle East from 19 March to 2 April 2009. In India, some 500 users were surveyed.

While consumer opinions posted online are gaining trust the world over, in India traditional forms of advertising like ads in newspapers and on TV remain far more popular, with 77 and 76 per cent of Indian respondents voting for them. But the internet does seem to be gaining - 74 per cent said they would trust opinions posted online.

The report reveals that ''brand sponsorship'' and ''ads before movies'' have seen the greatest increase in trust levels, both registering an increase of 20 percentage points. Text ads on mobile phones recorded second highest increase in trust, from 24 per cent votes in April 2007 to 43 per cent in April 2009.