92% of consumers trust influencers, UGC or word of mouth more than ads
Misquoted Confidence: high
Primary source found, but the way it is quoted changes the subject, metric, population or precision.
- Commonly cited as
- "92% of consumers trust influencers (or UGC) over ads" — Nielsen
- True origin
- Nielsen — Global Trust in Advertising (April 2012)
- Type
- Stat check: A widely repeated statistic traced back to its origin.
- Year
- 2012 (fieldwork 2011)
- Data as of
- 2012 (fieldwork 2011)
- Last checked
- What the source says
“recommendations from people I know” scored highest on trust, with 92 percent of consumers trusting this source completely or somewhat.
- Method & sample
- Online survey of 28,000+ internet respondents in 56 countries.
- Drift between quote and source
- Subject: 'people I know' (friends and family) rewritten as influencers or UGC
- Metric: 'completely or somewhat' trust rewritten as 'trust more than ads'
- Population: global online panel quoted as US consumers
- Date: 14 years old
- Interest
- Nielsen sells advertising measurement.
Safe rephrasing
In Nielsen's 2012 global online survey, 92% said they trust recommendations from people they know completely or somewhat; ads on social networks were trusted by 36%.
Sources we opened
Machine-readable: /api/claims/92-percent-trust-word-of-mouth-nielsen.json · Last checked 2026-10-16