Trust in Advertising

Do you trust the advertising industry? What about those slick ads that tell you:

• You must have this product to look good
• You must have this product to have friends
• You want to be happy? Buy our product!

The latest Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey was just released. And do you know who people trust most for product recommendations? Well, take a look at the headline for their July 7, 2009 press release:

"Personal Recommendations and Consumer Opinions Posted Online are the most Trusted Forms of Advertising Globally"

I'm not surprised! I have to say that I have Tivo and ...I fast forward through all of the commercials.

If I'm in the market for a particular type of product I do my research online, check a few of my favorite blogs and ...ask family and friends. I guess I'm like so many others.

Many times I wasn't even thinking of buying a product but I read a blog that peaked my interest and next thing you know ...I'm buying.

So, I think the Nielsen Global Survey got this one right.

Advertisers, listen up. We know you have a job to do. But we're tired of being lied to and misled.

So, how about listening to the customers? We have lots to say and best of all, we ...tell the truth!

How about you? Where do you go for recommendations for products and services?

Word of Mouth Stats

The Fresh Chat blog has a great list of stats for word of mouth. Jenni Beattie posted the list entitled "The Power of Word of Mouth" on July 10th. It's a very concise list. If you ever had a doubt about the importance of word of mouth recommendations, you must read this post. Thanks for compiling a very thorough list.

Best of the Best

Finding the best of the best can be fun! I always look forward to reading the annual best of best issues of my local magazine and newspaper. But what makes something the best and who votes on it? Often what I consider the best is different from what someone else prefers. I may enjoy a romantic restaurant and you may like an exciting trendy place to eat and mingle with others. I'm always curious to know what "other people like me" consider the best.

Wouldn't it be great if there was one place to go to find the best recommendations across a wide variety of topics? Instead of wasting valuable time searching for websites that list the best, wouldn't it be great to have a resource of expert and consumer recommendations that are continually updated and voted on? It would be convenient to have rated keywords or phrases describing the positives and negatives so it would be easy to understand at a glance without having to read long narratives.

This way if I was traveling to New York City and I wanted to find the best boutique hotel that was close to Times Square, I could easily locate it from what others recommended. If I wanted to find the best dog groomer who was patient and friendly in my city, I could locate it from the recommendations of others. It would be so convenient to have one place to go to find that information without searching all over the web.

What do you think? I envision the Word of Mouth Network as such a place. The difference would be the unique patented method that makes it easy to add, locate and understand recommendations at a glance. The word of mouth name is easily recognized and remembered so if a person wanted to find word of mouth recommendations about Paris they could type in http://www.wordofmouthparis.com/ and be directed to that section of the Network.

Word of Mouth Network: One stop shopping for the best word of mouth recommendations!

The original vision for the Word of Mouth Network was to provide a way for consumers to exchange word of mouth recommendations. We started it in 1999 before the dot com bust. It was originally called the Recommendation Exchange or "Rex" for short.

Consumers could share their favorite restaurants, TV shows, books or hair stylist with others. We developed a new method where the reviewer selects or adds keywords or short phrases that best described the subject and then rated the relative strengths or weaknesses of those words on a one to five scale. A rating of five would be the greatest strength while a rating of one would be the greatest weakness. This rated keyword method provided a more accurate and refined search results. They could also add an optional long form comment. We were eventually awarded a patent for this new method of capturing and sharing user feedback.

We had three large beta sites at media properties that were quite popular. Unfortunately, with the dot com bust we scaled back on our pursuit. Despite the timing, we maintained the beta sites and gained much knowledge about how to motivate users to contribute content, using points as incentives for specific behaviors and as a way to manage the quality of the content.