Global news media: trusted content, trusted ads
WAN-IFRA (World Association of News Publishers) recently commissioned Syno Int to measure AdTrust 40 countries. The study examined the habits and attitudes of 40,000 respondents, representing an expansive look at the state of trust in news media in the world today.
The findings reflected research conducted in Australian by NewsMediaWorks, showing news media have the most trusted ad content. Social media, meanwhile, continue to come last in trust studies.
The WAN-IFRA study also reinforced NewsMediaWorks’ findings regarding the importance of context: 94.3% of trust in ads across media can be explained by trust in content.
When it comes to gaining trust, it’s all about the company you keep, it seems.
NewsMediaWorks CEO Peter Miller said the WAN-IFRA study highlighted the need for advertisers to invest in quality, trustworthy media:
“Awareness of the importance of trust continues to rise. This has been shown locally and internationally. The digital platforms cannot make the same claims to trust, he said”
“There is now a body of research that demonstrates the trust inherent in the professional, premium generated content of news media publishers. In Australia, that is why more that 90% of Australians continue to engage with news media across print and digital.”
NewsMediaWorks has released the latest edition of its AdTrust research as of May 2019, revealing insights into the consumer trust in media and the ads placed there.
The research found that the highest level of trust was in printed newspapers, at 27 per cent net content trust, followed closely by news websites at 21 per cent. They also had the highest ad trust scores.
Social media, on the other hand, received a rating of –22 per cent net content trust and -26% for ads, making it the least trusted across both metrics.
Newspapers trust is high across all categories, with regional papers considered most trustworthy by readers, followed closely by national, community and metropolitan mastheads.
For websites, the AdTrust research indicated clear differentiation between news media websites and other digital media, with the former considered more trustworthy than search engines, non-news websites and social media sites. This highlights the value of premium in the digital marketplace.
