A research report from Forrester Research (“The Connected Agency”, February 2008) reinforces the reality that consumers have lost faith and lost interest in advertising. That’s not news – but it’s sobering to come face to face with the harsh truths of twenty-first century marketing.

As the Forrester report observes:

Consumers have replaced trust in advertising with trust in individuals — in particular, friends, family and colleagues. Turning to communities and away from mass media, consumers will increasingly:

• Ignore messages: Consumers have learned to block the ads they don’t want, and gate-keeping will become more sophisticated and widespread in the next three years: Digital Video Recorder (DVR) ownership in North America, which features ad-skipping, will grow from 19% of households in 2006 to 55% in 2011. More than half of UK consumers using the Internet at home utilize spam and popup blockers to filter unwanted messages from their online experiences, and countries like the Netherlands, France, and Germany are not far behind.

• Insist on involvement and resonance: Consumers in developed markets have fallen out of love with advertising. For example, nearly a third of French consumers are now ad haters, an increase of 20% in two years. Consumers expect ads to speak about and to them, but ads are missing the mark.

• Maintain control over their privacy: With incidents of identity theft, phishing, and data loss increasingly common, consumers protect their personal data and online privacy more vigilantly. When Facebook recently launched an opt-out advertising program called Beacon, consumers revolted and the scheme was quickly changed to opt-in. Governments are moving to act on the consumer’s behalf; in the US, the Federal Trade Commission has proposed behavioural targeting guidelines, and the EU may soon investigate the matter as well.

• Prefer peers’ endorsements: Consumers prefer the guidance of family and friends over other sources, but they also trust the opinions of “strangers” over marketing messages. Some 40% of UK Net users regularly read customer ratings and reviews and place them near the top of the list as reliable advice when buying products. As the Net population matures, participation in Social Computing and trust in this type of peer content will grow as well.