Direct Sellers Rated Highest In Trust

Global PR Blog:

A 2004 Intelliseek study 1 (PDF) found that consumer–to-consumer recommendations—even online consumer postings to forums—carry a higher trust factor than virtually all other forms of advertising, including TV, radio and print. That did not come as a surprise to many long established businesses. In fact, one of them always understood the value of consumer recommendations; its entire sales strategy relies on turning customers into brand ambassadors and capitalising on their social networks to influence others to purchase.

That company is Tupperware and it made a fortune by understanding word-of-mouth’s power 50 years ago. Since then, WOM has been reengineered as “Consumer Generated Marketing� and thanks to blogging, its persuasion power is making business media headlines again through a series of high profile customer relations disasters.