Forrester Research has sent us some figures from its North American Technographics Technology, Media, and Marketing Benchmark Survey, Q3 2007 about the relative levels of trust people have for different types of advertising. Forrester correlates the levels of trust with the level of control people have over the content. “Control leads to trust, pull wins vs. push,” wrote Peter Kim, Senior Analyst at Forrester Research. “The first three options are consumer controlled, “I know what I’ll get”. That’s why even though brand websites are commercial content, consumers make a choice to surf there. The ads in other channels are meant to interrupt or distract from a content experience.”

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The question was: “What is your overall level of trust for each of the following sources of advertising?”
—Consumer opinions posted online: 41 percent
—Email I signed up for: 35 percent
—Brand Web sites: 30 percent
—Magazine ads: 26 percent
—TV ads: 24 percent
—Radio ads: 21 percent
—Search engine ads: 12 percent
—Text ads on a cell phone: 7 percent
—Online banner ads: 7 percent
—Banner ads on a cell phone: 5 percent

The conclusion is that because people have little control over the banner ads served on their mobile phones they don’t really trust them. It’s only slightly lower than the level of trust people have for online banner ads, probably for the same reason.