There’s been some recent discussion around whether Word of Mouth and Viral Marketing are indeed different. In my view, viral marketing is the outcome of word-of-mouth recommendations. And it’s not surprising to see Asians rely a lot on word of mouth in this study from Neilsen that reveals some interesting trends:

- 7 of the top 10 markets relying heavily on word of mouth are from Asia, with India in the 4th position. Am not surprised by this - reputation and positive word of mouth are critical for success - and most transactions are done on this basis here. Manufacturer speak comes second.

- for advertising, 78% trust ‘consumer’ recommendations over newspapers (63%) and brand websites (60%).User opinion online (they call it ‘consumer opinions posted online’) comes in at 60%. Am wondering whether ‘recommendations from consumers’ and ‘consumer opinions posted online’ are really discrete.

- 73% of Indians trust advertising via these consumer opinions posted online … South Korea tops the list with 81% and some of the European nations are the least trusting

- blogs are trusted as a reliable resource for information in North America and Asia-Pacific more than in other regions in the world. Still, 62% in Asia-Pacific isn’t as high as we’d hope!

The tables below are reprinted from the press release. I’ve uploaded them into Flickr too.

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