Global Advertising: Consumers Trust Real Friends and Virtual Strangers the Most

Here's a post from today on Nielsen Wire about consumer trust in various sources of advertising:

Global Advertising: Consumers Trust Real Friends and Virtual Strangers the Most

Here's the chart in the article:




The most interesting thing I see here is the note at the bottom:

*E.g. 90 percent of respondents trusted "completely" or "somewhat" recommendations from people they know

Is that really what they gave people to choose as the top two categories? There are very few things I wouldn't pick "somewhat" for, and that has to apply to everyone because they surveyed 25,000 people and only 4 forms of advertising came back with less than 50% trust level!

I can understand the methodology of this in a way, because it's easier to get someone to pick between "none," "some," or "completely." Still, it's definitely deceiving to come back with a report saying "people trust brand websites just as much as they trust online reviews!" without giving a breakdown showing how much more people picked "completely" vs. "somewhat." Especially when they're also drawing the graph to say "and it's only a little less than they trust their best friend!"