Forget advertising anything

I was just revisiting the excellent Nielsen online survey for some data for a client and found the following statistics staggering:

90% of online consumers worldwide trust recommendations from people they know

70% trust consumer opinions posted online

I don't want to get into that whole "Word of Mouth" thing, I have heard its the most powerful marketing tool on the planet. But I do think what we are starting to see particularly digitally is that reviewing is the new advertising.

In the digital world there is just too much information, if you want to buy a 42' plasma TV you know all the information you need is out there, it just takes ages to get it. So we seek out trusted advice and recommendation — it makes us feel better, we know the facts, and we won't make a mistake, in order to make that perfect purchase.

It's a need that is met online by having access to millions of other consumers and their experiences and opinions, from giant review portals to real-time channels such as Twitter.

So these days businesses have got to understand the customer journey has changed and the decision to buy our brand or another has shifted significantly to a dynamic conversational mode where your brand could be on top today and trashed tomorrow

There are 1.6bn people online and the next million are waiting patiently in line for fibre optic cables....this phenomenon isn't going away anytime soon