Despite the many advertising platforms available, according to a global survey conducted by Nielson, it seems that consumers still place the highest level of trust in other people's opinions. This survey was conducted over 47 markets and was made up of 26,486 Internet users.

Attitudes towards thirteen types of advertising, including online advertising, were surveyed. The survey found: "Filipinos and Brazilians (67%) to be the most trusting overall of all forms of advertising, while trust among Danes (28%), Italians (32%), Lithuanians (34%) and Germans (35%) were the lowest in the world."

In terms of eMarketing, the Internet is catching up with traditional advertising mediums in terms of ad-revenue yet it is still lagging behind in terms of trust.



Word-of-mouth or customer recommendations are considered the most credible form of advertising among 78% of respondents though significant national and regional differences were found regarding this and other mediums. North America (66%) and Asia (62%) scored highest in regards to the reliability of consumer opinions that were posted online, rated at 61% overall. Among individual web-based opinions, such as Blogs, were most trusted in South Korea (81%) and Taiwan (76%), while scored the lowest in Finland (35%).

The study also revealed that consumer-generated media and branded web sites were trusted by more than half of all consumers. With "search engine and banner advertising, along with text ads on mobile phones, each scored at the bottom of the list with fewer than 35 percent of total respondents." Regionally speaking, Latin American consumers found these ads most believable, while Europeans trusted them the least.