Dive Brief:
- Nielsen’s Trust in Advertising study looked at consumer trust across all age groups and a wide range of mediums from personal recommendations to mobile text ads.
- Not surprisingly, millennials trust online ads more than Gen Z and Gen X, but TV ads outranked online video ads. Still, the highest level of trust across all generations was “recommendations from people I know.”
- Across all formats, both traditional and digital, TV ads was the only group that increased in trust compared to 2013.
Dive Insight:
Nielsen’s Trust in Advertising study surveyed 30,000 consumers in 60 countries in early 2015 and found 63% of respondents completely or somewhat trust TV ads compared to 48% reporting trusting online video ads. The highest ranking category was recommendations from friends and family cited by 83% of survey participants. Every category produced similar results compared to 2013 with only TV ads showing an increase of 1%. Four categories – magazine ads, ads before movies, social media ads and mobile ads – reported a 2% decrease, while radio ads saw the largest drop at 3%.
Nielsen Expanded Verticals President Randall Beard told Marketing Land, “Millennials consume media differently than their older counterparts, exercising greater control over when and where they watch, listen and read content — and on which device.”
The study found that millennials have the highest trust across all generations, including Gen Z, for online and mobile ads.