Trust is Everything: Highlights from Our Unconscious Content Bias Report

Whether it’s relationships or friendships, all bonds are built on trust. Relationship experts from around the world will tell you that without trust you have nothing. This is the same for brands and their potential customers. And it’s a topic that we’ve been talking about a lot at Outbrain.

To help answer these questions we’ve launched the Unconscious Content Bias report, which provides some much needed insights on the types of content and environments that consumers find the most trustworthy and interesting.

Our research shows that when it comes to more serious pieces of content, traditional publishers like The Guardian and The Sun are a more trusted environment than social media or blogs.

Two-thirds of those we surveyed agreed that the content found there is reliable. In fact, traditional publishers were the most trusted environment for four out of the seven verticals polled, including travel and financial advice.

While social media does have its place, audiences are happy to head there for more light-hearted types of content such as fashion and health & fitness “how to’s” and advice videos.

The real opportunity for our clients is that consumers, in general, consider familiar brands to be a more reliable source of information (77%) than content shared by their own friends on social media (67%) – definitely something to consider when thinking about the placement of brand owned content and native advertising.

Read more about building trust and the Unconscious Content Bias report and its findings.