Nielsen has a table out distilling the results of Global Trust in Advertising survey.   Worldwide, 50%+ of us trust the following kinds of brand recommendations:

Personal recommendations from someone you know (90%), consumer opinions online (70%), editorial content (58%), branded websites (58%) and emails you’ve signed up for (50%).

All other forms of advertising have trust ratings of less than 50%, including TV ads (47%), TV product placement (40%), social media ads (36%) and sms mobile advertising (29%)

A few observations:

Straight forward PR via editorial endorsements in newspapers certainly matter, but it’s interesting to see that information posted on a brand’s own website is just as believable for consumers.   Of course, a newspaper or magazine still carries the extra weight of third party endorsement

Seven out of ten of us trust consumer opinions posted online.   That’s opinions very often from strangers and note the wording – opinions not reviews

Trust in standard above the line advertising is now below 50%.  In the past two years, trust in TV advertising has dropped by 24% and trust in newspaper ads by 25%

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Want to know why the mommy / mummy blogger is a constant discussion topic among brand managers?  Check out this Nielsen chart.

It shows “social moms” (i.e. mothers who use social networks) are more likely to shop, post and comment.   And mothers that blog are – as you’d expect – more active still.

Scarborough Research shows  that (in the US) blogging mothers are 51% more likely than average to visit a newspaper website.   Meanwhile in the past month, 90% visited a social media site (actually – that stat could easily be turned around:  10% of mommy bloggers *aren’t* on social media).

As far back as 2008 TNS showed that in the UK, housewives spend 47% of their free time online, more than even the Chinese (who as a whole spend 44% of leisure time on the Internet).

Meanwhile, Mothers are also more likely to engage in so-called in-store mobile browsing, with 68% going online via their phones while in store.  In other words they will be having conversations online or checking out information, while walking down the aisles of your shop – while ignoring the £25 billion worth of POS material that has been put there for them to see.

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Over the past few years, two related concepts have gathered more and more attention.  First of all, there is the idea of media stacking – consuming two different types of media at once, usually interpreted to mean having the laptop open in front of the TV.

Secondly, and related to that there is the notion of social TV – people talking live and online about what’s on the television.

In fact, a Nielsen study shows it’s tablet owners in particular who have their devices open while the box is blaring away in the background.   42% of tablet owners, most of which are still iPad owners , use their device in front of the TV every day.

For smartphone owners the % is 40%, whereas owners of ereaders such as the Kindle are the least distracted, with only 14% reading the ereader and simultaneously watching TV every day.

And what are tablet users doing?   60% are reading their emails while a programme is on.   However, 42% of men and 48% of women are on social networks. Significantly, one in five even looked up information related to an ad.

Who says social media spells the death of TV advertising?  As that last stat (and plenty of case studies) shows, well crafted ads with social elements can even go a lot further thanks to social channels.

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Another study to add to the arsenal of ‘why spend money on social media.’

This time from Nielsen, which shows that among consumers using social media, consumer ratings and reviews come top as the preferred source of product information.

The Nielsen blog post doesn’t specify where the study took place, but assuming it was carried out in the US, social media users = just over half of the population (allowing for 3/4 Internet penetration and 3/4 Facebook use among the Internet population)

Less well received?   A company’s Twitter ID at 7%.  I interpret that in two ways.   First of all, corporate social media accounts aren’t trusted to deliver unbiased product information, but ones run by ordinary consumers are.

Secondly, you may not look to a social media feed for product information, but you will turn to it for news and / or complaints.

Finally, the Nielsen study again confirms female dominance in the social media realm with women on social networks more likely to talk to their friends about brands than men (81% vs 72%)

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Those of us who work in the online / social sphere are forever asked about KPIs.   No matter the numbers on social media, there is still a constant need for proof points to show that dollars, pounds and euros spent in social media actually works.

Here’s one – via Nielsen and McKinsey.  There is a direct correlation between an increase in social buzz and TV ratings.

The chart is fairly self explanatory, an increase in buzz at certain periods of a TV series in turn equates to a 1% ratings increase.

As this is a US study, that can translate into millions of viewers (even here in the UK, an uplift of 1% would be substantial).   Millions of viewers who are then also exposed to the advertising sold within that show.

Perhaps not surprisingly, 18-34 year olds are most engaged and responsible for bringing in new viewers.   Nielsen tells us that men aged 50+ are least interested about what is being said online.

That’s an interesting point, and ties into an earlier Comscore study in Europe showing that while women in their 40s and 50s are highly engaged in social networks, 50+ men are increasingly being left behind.

Finally, think this finding is exclusive to TV and entertainment?    In the US, Jeep found that not only could social media drive sales.  It could predict them.  

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Despite the whole ‘newspaper death watch’ trend, current research shows that the TV is still the main media device for most consumers.   At the same time, there are signs that do show some viewers, especially younger ones, switching off their boxes.

For example, the other day GigaOm reported on a Nielsen study done in TV-land: The United States.   Nielsen shows that US TV viewers watched less in Q2 2010 compared to the previous quarter, but that’s a stat that can be explained away by seasonal factors.   What’s more interesting is when you look at TV time by age group.

Certainly in the pre Internet 1980s, teens were the prime TV audience.   Now at 103:46 hours:minutes a month, 12-17 year olds watch less TV than any other age group.   Similarly, 18-24 year olds (113:54) tune in for a significantly shorter period of time than other adults.   In fact, Nielsen’s stats show that the older you are, the more TV you watch with people who are 65+ watching almost 200 hours.

GigaOm comments, “it’s not a good sign for TV programmers and cable companies, which are gradually seeing their viewers getting older.”

Some additional stats from both the UK and US that support this trend:

1 – The UK’s Ofcom Communications Markets Report asks consumers about their most essential media.   Looking at which one piece of media they would miss the most, 50% of all UK consumers chose TV.   However, for the under 25s that dropped to 36%.

2 - Similarly, according to Pew Research, 53% of US adults aged 65+ consider their TV set an essential item, compared to 29% of 18-29 year olds.

A lot of that time spent away from the TV set is of course spent online.   But there is also some evidence to show that social networks could be slowly bringing people back to the television set.

Last week Fastcompany had a piece on Twitter bringing back “appointment TV” – live events that you want to share with your friends via social media (with your laptop or phone open beside you).   And Motorola’s research out this week says that 42% of TV viewers have exchanged e-mails, had IM chats or used social media to talk about a TV programme at the same time they were viewing it, while 22% said that social media + TV “multitasking” was a regular feature of their television experience.

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Does watching online content make you less likely to watch ordinary TV?   Not at all, says metrics group Nielsen (via Hollywood Reporter) and the Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM), which say that Web TV viewers are if anything “cord keepers” rather than cutters.

Nielsen surveyed a group of Americans that watch at least some TV or movies via the Internet on their TV sets.    The research showed that 84% were watching as much, if not more, scheduled TV.   And discovering a programme on the Web can then often result in you watching it via the normal means on scheduled TV – this was the case for 53% of respondents.

CTAM says that these results show how the Internet is often used to enhance someone’s enjoyment of a particular show, and not replace it with something else.   It also links into stats that show that the most popular YouTube channels are more often than not variations of what you will see on TV anyway.   According to Ofcom, in the UK that includes BBC Worldwide, X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent – all mainstream broadcast properties.

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Some stats out from Nielsen (via Marketing Charts) show that North Americans and Europeans are less enthusiastic adopters of mobile video than web users in other parts of the world.

If 100 is the global average, then the European Union scores 55, while North America comes out even worse at 45.   Compare that to Asia Pacific at 145 and the Middle East, Africa and Pakistan (why that combo?) at 136.

Why is this significant?  Because using mobile video is the tipping point at which people switch from their laptop or PC being their primary Internet device, to their mobile.

This is according to a study by Transpera a year ago, which showed that 62% of mobile video users use their mobile/cellphones to browse the Internet more than they use their computers.

Perhaps one reason for the North America and European figures could be down to increased data capping, with both AT&T in the US and the major UK operators having called time on unlimited mobile data.  If so, pricing is having a real impact on consumer behaviour and online habits.

Meanwhile in Japan, Softbank still allows unlimited data for its iPhone4 plans.   And with the Middle East being quick on the mobile video uptake, UAE telecoms company DU has an unlimited data plan with a ‘fair use’ policy of a whopping 10gb.   Compare that to the fair use policy of Orange in the UK of…750mb.

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Or at least that’s what the majority of (US) 18-34 year old’s say according to the National Retail Federation and BIGresearch (via Marketing Charts).   51.4% now want Internet access on their mobile / cell phones, up from 44.6% in October 2009.

However, while it stands to reason that Generation Y now expects the ability to be online on the go, it is worth looking at the stat for 35-54 year olds.   Almost half (47%) now want to access the Mobile Internet – less than a year ago in October 2009 that statistic was just over 1/3.

Indeed, back in March metrics firm Nielsen found that 36% of mobile social network use is done by 35-54 year olds, 34% by 25-34 year olds and 16% by 18-24 year olds.  As I said in a post at the time, it could well be that many people aged 35+ are supplied a Smartphone as part of their jobs and so get introduced to it as a consumer tool by using it for business first.

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Despite a previous Ofcom report showing that for (UK) 16-24 year olds the mobile phone was the second most essential piece of media behind the TV and ahead of the PC, metrics firm Nielsen says that it’s really people aged 25+, and in particular 35+, who are most likely to be going online via their mobiles.

36% of mobile social network use is done by 35-54 year olds, with 34% being done by 25-34 year olds.   By comparison, 18-24 year olds only account for 16%.   One reason for this could in fact be that smartphones are still fairly expensive and out of the reach of many 18 year olds.   And a lot of people aged 30+ will be issued a blackberry or other smartphone as part of their jobs.

On the Web as a whole, women tend to dominate in social media.   Last year Rapleaf did a study all about women having more friends on social networks than men, while Royal Pingdom looked at 19 sites and found that 53% of users were female.   Nielsen says that this trend is replicated on mobiles – 55% of users are women while 45% are men.

Are mobile marketers getting it wrong?   Rather than trying to aim their mobile campaigns at 19 year old students, should they be turning their sights to 35 year old female business executives?

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