Source: Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey
In their 2009 Global Online Consumer Survey of internet consumers from around the world, Nielsen reveals that 70% of consumers have some degree of trust in customer opinions posted online. According to Nielsen, these consumers trusted "completely" or "somewhat" recommendations in the form of ratings or reviews from people they didn't necessarily know. What does this mean for marketers in the e-commerce field?
 |
| Source: Nielsen Global Consumer Survey 2009 |
So What?
At first glance, that seems like a whole lot of "trust" placed on complete strangers. As counter-intuitive as it seems, a lot of us have, in fact, relied on the wisdom of reviews to help us decide whether to buy a certain product, especially for those big ticket items. Why? Because we consumers are basically all the same. Sure, we might have varying tastes and preferences but we are all united by the same fundamental goal of finding products and services that simply deliver what they promise. Since consumers don't really have much incentive to post an untruthful review of a product, we tend to regard reviews as authentic.
Okay, so consumers trust reviews. But do marketers really need to incorporate them in their plans? After all, according to the same survey, brand websites elicit just as much trust as customer opinions anyway. Outside the confines of the brand website however, the picture isn't so pretty. From an online advertising standpoint, that marketers aren't able to rely solely on their own copy to sell their products. In the survey, online ads ranked poorly on the trust scale. Online banner ads, for example, elicit trust from only 33% of the respondents. From the chart above, you can see that online ads are perceived to be less credible than their traditional counterparts. Perhaps it's the wealth of spam that circulates the web that brings down the credibility of online marketers overall. Whatever the reason, the fact is that marketers are losing a lot of money in ads that don't lead to conversions.
To solve this credibility issue, marketers may need to look no further than the consumers themselves. Some key players in the industry are already beginning to innovate in this space, finding ways to incorporate consumer generated content into advertisements. Microsoft Advertising, for example, introduced People Powered Solutions today at Social Media Week in New York. The product would allow advertisers to show actual consumers' reviews and ratings of a particular product into rich display ads that appear on Microsoft's media network.
The initial tests look promising. According to Microsoft, their early testing of the product showed some uplift in key marketing metrics. Moving towards giving consumers a greater role in developing the brand message is definitely an interesting direction for the online advertising industry to take. Marketers, watch this space.
Okay, so consumers trust reviews. But do marketers really need to incorporate them in their plans? After all, according to the same survey, brand websites elicit just as much trust as customer opinions anyway. Outside the confines of the brand website however, the picture isn't so pretty. From an online advertising standpoint, that marketers aren't able to rely solely on their own copy to sell their products. In the survey, online ads ranked poorly on the trust scale. Online banner ads, for example, elicit trust from only 33% of the respondents. From the chart above, you can see that online ads are perceived to be less credible than their traditional counterparts. Perhaps it's the wealth of spam that circulates the web that brings down the credibility of online marketers overall. Whatever the reason, the fact is that marketers are losing a lot of money in ads that don't lead to conversions.
To solve this credibility issue, marketers may need to look no further than the consumers themselves. Some key players in the industry are already beginning to innovate in this space, finding ways to incorporate consumer generated content into advertisements. Microsoft Advertising, for example, introduced People Powered Solutions today at Social Media Week in New York. The product would allow advertisers to show actual consumers' reviews and ratings of a particular product into rich display ads that appear on Microsoft's media network.
The initial tests look promising. According to Microsoft, their early testing of the product showed some uplift in key marketing metrics. Moving towards giving consumers a greater role in developing the brand message is definitely an interesting direction for the online advertising industry to take. Marketers, watch this space.
No comments:
Post a Comment