Malaysians still trust word-of-mouth

NIELSEN    SURVEY    TRUST

Malaysia - Word-of-mouth and recommendations from friends and family have emerged as the most trusted form of advertising among nine in 10 Malaysian online consumers.

Nielsen's latest Global Trust in Advertising Survey found that three-quarters of Malaysians surveyed trust branded websites and two-thirds find online opinions posted online as credible. With online advertisements, social network ads were trusted by 33%, while 29% found display ads on mobile devices as credible.

The full study of more than 28,000 online respondents across 56 countries showed that Malaysians' confidence in traditional or ‘paid' media has also dropped.

Since 2009, consumers trust ads in newspapers, television, radio, magazines and billboards declined by 21%, 19%, 17% and 12% respectively.

Danyal Abdul Malik, managing director of Nielsen's media division Malaysia, said to earn the trusts of consumers, marketers need to reach via social networks, websites and solicited emails.

"This will effectively foster two way communications with the consumers," he said.

In terms of ad relevancy when consumers are looking for information on products they want and need, 95% find recommendations by personal acquaintances more relevant, while 79% found relevance in consumer opinions posted online and 74% in branded websites. Editorial content comes in fourth, with 70% finding it relevant when seeking information.

But with traditional forms, more than half of the respondents still find conventional media such as TV and newspapers to be personally relevant.

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