• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, May 18, 2015

According to a recent roundup study by Marketing Charts, when it comes to influencing consumers’ purchases, word-of-mouth continues to outperform all paid media, finds Deloitte in recently-released survey results from the Digital Democracy Survey. The study shows 8 in 10 Americans aged 14+ saying recommendations have a medium (43%) or high (38%) influence on their purchase decisions. But among paid media, TV still commands the broadest degree of influence, cited by almost two-thirds of respondents.

US Consumer Purchase Decision Influencers (% of Respondents; April 2015)
Decision Influencer	% Saying High Influence	% Medium Influence
Recommendation from friend, family, known acquaintance	38%	43%’
Television ads	18	47
Online review/recommendation from within social media circle	17	44
Online review (not friend in real life)	11	39
In-theater ad	12	34
Mentioned in TV show or movie	12	35
Magazine ad	6	38
Reseller or channel partner	9	34
Mfg or vendor website	7	35
Newspaper ads	7	34
Email from brand	6	31
Ads in social Media	6	25
Video game advertising	7	19
Celeb endorsement	5	20
SMS/text message	5	15
Source: Deloitte, April 2015

Those results align with findings from a global Nielsen survey released in late 2013, in which TV topped all media in terms of buying influence, but remained behind word-of-mouth, says the report. And, a MarketingCharts study released last year similarly found TV ads to influence more Americans than any other paid medium.

Though the results are based on self-reported behavior, TV’s continuing position at the top is interesting given consistent press about declining ratings, the rise in time-shifting behavior, and multi-tasking.

In a recent study though, Nielsen found that 58% of TV commercials are viewed during playback of time-shifted and video-on-demand content, versus the remaining 42% that are skipped. Additionally, data contained in a MarketingCharts report on TV advertising indicates that media multitaskers are actually more likely to watch TV ads than the average adult. And new study results from Innerscope Research suggest that among 18-34-year-olds, TV ads generate more visual attention than digital pre-rolls and far more engagement than Facebook video ads.

Beyond TV ads, other paid media which influence a significant share of Deloitte’s survey respondents include:

• In-theater advertising (pre-movie; 50%)
• Magazine ads (46%)
• Newspaper (41%)
• Radio (37%)
• Emails (37%)
• Social media ads (31%)
• Celebrity endorsements (25%)

Mobile ads, delivered in-app or via SMS, were towards the bottom of the list, notes the report. Even so, new studies are touting the effectiveness of mobile video advertising, with research from Google and Ipsos MediaCT finding that smartphone video viewers are more likely than TV viewers to take a variety of actions as a result of seeing branded content or ads on those devices.

A separate study from the IAB reports that marketers and agencies are far more likely to say they’ll be increasing their spending on digital video (68%) and mobile video (58%) advertising, than on broadcast/cable/OTT TV ads (33%). And of those planning to increase their spending on digital video advertising, most will be borrowing those funds from cable and/or broadcast TV.

Still, the biggest barrier to increased spending on digital video advertising (which continues to be dwarfed by TV ad spend) is ROI versus other media, with this a larger concern among marketers than agencies.

For more from the MarketingCharts roundup, please visit here; or for the Deloitte survey, go here.