The effect of trust in times of fake news

Blog Ralph Sluis – Client Consultant

These last few years there has been more and more to do around ‘fake news’. A concept that was even voted word of the year in 2017 by a British publisher, due to popularisation of the word at the hands of US President Donald Trump. Even in 2020, the debate around fake news is still in full swing; there is a lot of misinformation around the pandemic, and the documentary “The social dilemma” rekindled the debate earlier in the year. In these times especially, we see the importance of trusted and reliable news sources being emphasised from all sides. Reason enough to take a closer look at the meaning of trust and the effect of a reliable news source. On behalf of NRC Media, DVJ Insights carried out the research ‘Feitelijk betrouwbaar’, to study the value of a journalistic news brand.

On Wednesday, December 2nd, I sat at the table during ‘Het uur van NRC’, with Jeroen Smit (Journalist), Madelon Fortuin (Commercial Director NRC Media) and Wilfried de Jong (Host), to discuss what it means to advertise in a world where misinformation is spreading faster than facts. During the broadcast, we discussed the study and why this topic is so relevant in today’s world. Above all, an interesting morning, in which both Madelon and I were questioned by the critical round table members, making it both fun and interactive, the critical tone of course very fitting of the NRC brand.

BROWSING THROUGH

When we started the research, we first needed to know what trust means for the news consumer. Trust in news media has been researched a lot, but little is known about the meaning of the consumer. We first delved into the scientific literature to develop a theoretical framework. Using a questionnaire, we studied this among the Dutch news consumer and NRC user. The questionnaire consisted of both qualitative and quantitative techniques, such as associations and storytelling to determine trust in news media, and evaluation through brand statements, associations, and image statements to uncover the effect of trust. By using qualitative techniques, respondents are given the opportunity to share their own stories and thoughts, making the theme of trust very tangible. Subsequently, by having respondents classify their own stories and associations, we can quantify and compare the results.

The great thing about this study is how we measured the effect of trust. Through a unique experiment, the respondents were presented with their own environment based on their preferred news title (all creatives were tested among NRC readers and newspaper readers in general). To approximate reality as closely as possible, this online research has been set up in such a way that one could read a completely formatted newspaper. In addition, it was decided to also test non-existing (fake) advertisements, to uncover the effect of trust and, above all, isolate it, as we wanted to prevent an existing brand or advertisement from influencing the result. Finally, all respondents were presented with the questions related to trust in the news brands, so that we could distinguish between people with little, average, or high trust in news media.

DOES TRUST HAVE AN EFFECT?

The most important question is of course; does trust in news brands make ads more effective? In short: Yes. We see that more trust leads to higher memory, recognition, and message transfer. When we look at the brand evaluation of the advertising brand, we see that a higher degree of trust results in a positive brand evaluation. As a result, trust leads to a better ad rating, which leads to higher brand impact scores.

The research showed that trust in a strong journalistic news brand significantly improves scores on the advertising brand’s most important KPIs and results in more distinctive and more positive associations for the advertising brand. Therefore, trust has an effect. An outcome that gives hope to both advertisers and consumers. After all, being able to rely on news media is vital, especially today.